Early Learning Center Showcases Murrieta Valley USD Education Technology Initiatives with Extron AV

Murrieta Valley Unified School District (Murrieta Valley USD) in Riverside County, California, serves 21,603 students in grades TK-12 on 21 campuses, including eleven elementary schools, four middle schools, three high schools, two alternative education centers, and the Early Learning Center. The district is in the top 30 percent of California public schools, measured by testing ranking.

CHALLENGES

For much of its 35 year history, Murrieta Valley USD has depended on Extron classroom audiovisual systems and GlobalViewer^® Campus Communication Suite (GVCCS). A pair of Extron case studies published in 2018 and 2020 describe how the District has incorporated Extron audiovisual hardware and software into its campuses, classrooms, and district-wide operations.

When a local private preschool put their building up for sale, the District acquired it and transformed it into the Early Learning Center (ELC). The facility provided a blank slate to enhance the building with new spaces attuned to the needs of pre-K children, their parents, caregivers, and teachers. These spaces include a multipurpose room suitable for meetings and assemblies, classrooms for preschool education programs, and outdoor play areas.

The district superintendent challenged the in-house IT/AV team to make the ELC a pathfinder for the latest education-focused technology, including audiovisual systems, advanced power backup, advanced networking and Power over Ethernet++, electronic access control door locks, modern security systems including advanced analytic detection systems, and emergency management systems.

Today, I had the great privilege of representing the city and congratulating the school district on opening its first new site since Murrieta Mesa High School opened nearly 10 years ago. On behalf of my colleagues on the city council, we are thrilled to see the school district growing to meet the needs of our community. If you haven't seen the Early Learning Center, you should take a tour. The school staff and those who worked on this project did an amazing job in such a short time.

DESIGN SOLUTION

The experienced staff of the Murrieta Valley USD Technology Department performs AV system design and installation across all of the district’s campuses. As they have done so many times before, they turned to Extron for the latest AV technology to meet the superintendent's challenge to equip the ELC with an array of cutting edge features that entertain, educate, and safeguard the young occupants.

Multipurpose Room

The Multipurpose Room is divisible, with eight 85" flat panel displays (four on each side of the divided space), plus an LED videowall on the performance stage. An Extron 8x12 DTP3 CrossPoint 884 presentation matrix switcher with integrated control processor and audio amplifier is the signal distribution core of the room's AV system. Program content is supplied to the switcher from laptops and other HDMI sources that plug into four DTP HDMI transmitter wallplates positioned around the room. Program content is also supplied to the switcher from Airtame^® screen sharing hubs that allow wireless mirroring from mobile devices. The switcher accepts inputs from two local wired HDMI auxiliary sources as well, including a PTZ camera that shows scenes of the room. Eight of the switcher outputs connect to the flat panel displays via DTP HDMI receiver wallplates, while the videowall is fed by two local HDMI outputs from the switcher.

Audio can originate from any of the Multipurpose Room sources already mentioned, as well as from wired and wireless microphones, and from bells and paging announcements supplied from GVCCS. There’s also a chime sound effect generator that summons people to meetings.

The DTP3 CrossPoint 884 switcher’s integrated ProDSP™ audio digital signal processor distributes digital audio via Dante^® audio networking to four power amplifiers. The power amplifiers drive two wall-mounted speakers flanking each flat panel display to create eight discrete mono sound zones. The power amplifiers also drive speakers on the performance stage, as well as ceiling speakers in the lobby.

Two wall-mounted 10" TLP Pro 1025M Touchpanels located in each half of the divisible Multipurpose Room provide the user interface to control the AV system. When the room is divided, the touchpanels control the AV systems on each side independently; when the divider is retracted to create one large space, the two touchpanels are synchronized. Customized touchpanel GUIs contain buttons and sliders to control AV system power on/off, AV content routing from sources to displays, PTZ camera motion, audio source selection, and audio volume adjustment. The Murrieta Valley USD Technology Department staff created the touchpanel GUIs and AV control scheme using Extron GUI Designer and Global Configurator^®.

Classrooms and Lobby

The AV system at the Early Learning Center includes the district’s first installation of the PVCA 452 controller amplifier, central component of Extron’s PlenumVault^® Direct View System, purpose built for instructional spaces that use flat panel displays. Among its standout features is DSP audio mixing that allows instructors to create engaging lessons by combining lecture presentations with music. EBP 100 button panels provide an intuitive AV system user interface. Flat Field^® ceiling speakers provide the sound.

The PVCA 452 works with VoiceLift^® Pro pendant and handheld wireless microphones, so instructors can take further advantage of audio mixing capabilities by narrating over lesson presentations. A line level audio output supports remote learning or assistive listening applications. Integration with Murrieta Valley USD’s district-wide GlobalViewer Campus Communication Suite allows the PVCA 452 to play bells, PA announcements, and Raptor emergency management system alerts over classroom speakers.

At our Early Learning Center, the technical team strove to show what we can do with the latest technology, and to do it on a limited budget. We put a system together that is fully integrated: Extron AV, centralized power over Ethernet, electronic door access, security cameras, Raptor Connect emergency alert initiation tied into Extron GVCCS public address capabilities, and more. It's working quite well, and it’s a great demo showcase to help advocate the concept for wider deployment.

RESULTS

The Early Learning Center is the latest building block supporting Murrieta Valley USD’s Early Childhood Education program. The program is available in elementary schools across the district. The Early Learning Center adds the extra resources of full-day toddler and preschool care serving ages 18 months to four years.

The ELC classrooms are arranged using the Early Childhood Environmental Rating Scale^® (ECERS), a nationally recognized tool that helps ensure the learning environment is developmentally appropriate, engaging, and effective. The classroom spaces are designed to support childhood growth across key domains that include personal care, language, reasoning, and interactions. The audiovisual capabilities brought to the various spaces within the ELC by Extron education technology play a valuable role in achieving these childhood growth objectives, and in so doing, serve as a pathfinder for the application of technology solutions throughout the district.

MURRIETA VALLEY UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT VIDEO LINKS AND OTHER LINKS

Click here to view the grand opening ceremony for the Early Learning Center.

Click Here to view a video promoting the Early Learning Center.

Click Here for a case study about how the district enhances safety and security by integrating Raptor^® Connect™ with Extron GlobalViewer Campus Communication Suite.

Photos and videos courtesy of Murrieta Valley Unified School District and Murrieta/Wildomar Chamber of Commerce.

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