The Benefit of a Small School

As I’m writing this I’ve just left a site inservice. Here in Eek we have several days of site or district wide inservices. We spent much of the afternoon discussing our at-risk students and how we as a staff can help them. The students ranged in ages across the school. This brings me to my topic for today- the benefit of small schools.

I taught for five years at a traditional middle school in Ohio. We had grades 6-8 with about 500 students. Now, at Eek School, we have grades K-12 with about 85 students. I’m responsible for 31 students in grades 7-12. I grew up in a small school, but it was mammoth compared to this school. I thought when I first came here that this must be extremely annoying for the students and the staff. For instance, if Bobby is being a brat one day, then, in Ohio, I only had to have him in class for 50 minutes. Here, I also have him for 50 minutes, but I teach that group 2-3 times a day for different classes. While the above situation can be true, the benefits of a small school far outweigh the negative.

My first success story is that of Billy (obviously not his real name). Billy has been academically unsuccessful for years. As a staff, we thought maybe he would do better with a smaller class size. Keep in mind that our classes only have about 12-15 students in general. So, Billy’s schedule has been switched to be with a teacher and only one other student or no other students for most of the day. His academic tasks and social behavior have completely changed for the better. Some of you who are not involved in education might wonder why this was such a big achievement. I mean we simply did what was best for the student, right? But, in most schools, moving a student’s schedule is a huge issue due to staffing problems. Why could we do this? Because we have a small school, and we’re able to move schedules without disrupting a lot of people’s schedules.

Teachers know almost every student in K-12 by his/her first name. In fact, we often sub for one another in order to let people go to the health clinic, chaperone athletic teams, and help out where needed.

Students also benefit from having a small school. If a kindergarten student is misbehaving or crying, one of the most effective strategies is to call the high school room (me) and ask for the student’s older sibling to come help. Imagine the embarrassment if instead of the principal coming, it was your older brother! This is a strategy we generally only have to employ once or twice.

Small schools are something that we don’t see much in the Lower 48. However, it’s something that perhaps we need to think more about. What exactly are we getting from these 1,000+ student schools? At what point does the value of a child’s education outweigh that of the taxpayers’ protestations?