May/August 2002 | NW REPORT

Small School Might

Even the most reticent teenager will crave meaningful relationships with the adults in her life. In fact, in school, she'll learn and develop valuable personal qualities more readily if her daily experience includes the consistent and close attention of a few caring adults.

Research amply supports this, and it's one of the reasons an increasing number of large, comprehensive high schools are being restructured into clusters of smaller learning communities, where students, teachers, counselors, and other adults in the school get to know each other well. Whether in schools-within-a-school, career academies, "neighborhoods," or any other number of ways staff members at large schools are making their institutions smaller and more friendly, students feel less alienated and teachers more empowered. In smaller groups, students can feel more integral, and teachers can get to know students as individuals: what interests them, how well they understand an idea, what particular challenges they face, what their gifts are, and how they best learn.

According to New Small Learning Communities: Findings From Recent Literature by Kathleen Cotton, research associate in the Laboratory's School Improvement Program, "Research conducted over the past 15 years has convincingly demonstrated that small schools are superior to large ones on many measures and equal to them on the rest."

In small-school environments, the studies show, all students—whatever their ethnicity or place on the socioeconomic ladder—tend to achieve at higher levels, have a greater sense of belonging, feel safer, are less likely to drop out, and are more likely to participate in extracurricular activities and go on to college. Furthermore, parent involvement is higher in smaller schools, as is teachers' job satisfaction.

Responding to this strong evidence, writes Cotton, "government and private funding sources have made millions of dollars available to large schools—and especially large high schools—to create 'small learning communities' (SLCs) within the buildings they already inhabit."

This summer, $97 million will be awarded to schools and districts for planning, developing, and implementing more personalized learning environments in large high schools. Another $142 million has been earmarked for awards to be made in 2003. (The President did not request funds for Smaller Learning Communities Program grant awards for 2004.) To apply, go to the U.S. Department of Education's Web site, www.ed.gov/programs/slcp/.

NWREL in Pivotal Role

The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory is at the center of this national activity, providing technical assistance and evaluation services to schools and districts around the country that received SLC implementation grants. The U.S. Department of Education contracted with the Laboratory to coordinate and deliver three-day institutes covering such things as flexible scheduling, interdisciplinary instruction, thematic academies, teaching teams and "critical friends," multiple forms of assessment, and data-based decisionmaking.

The Laboratory maintains an SLC Web site (www.nwrel.org/scpd/sslc/index.shtml) with information on the key elements of well-run smaller learning communities; an online version of Cotton's research synthesis and other resources; links to regional partners; and a calendar of events. Working with other regional agencies, the Laboratory brought together project directors from the grantee schools to share information and strategies, and to choose topics for regional institutes. Institutes are tailored to schools' needs and draw on research-based best practices for designing and operating small-learning environments. Space permitting, the institutes may be open to other high schools. Check the Laboratory's SLC Web site in early June for notification.

"Smaller size alone is insufficient to ensure learning success for all students," says Bob Blum, director of the Laboratory's School Improvement Program. "To make high schools work, it is essential to take advantage of small size to improve the quality of day-to-day teaching and learning."

Training for teachers and other school staff members is essential. A school that's restructured into smaller learning communities may be very little like the conventional comprehensive high school. Not only may the walls and hours in the schoolhouse be arranged differently, people may relate to one another in new ways. The key elements of a well-run smaller learning community—self-determination, identity, personalization, support for teaching, and accountability—can mean that teachers may collaborate more through team teaching, serving in a teacher advisory group, and sharing schoolwide decisionmaking authority. Students may have more say in how they participate in school, choosing the career academy they want to be in, for example, and expect more individualized attention from teachers and other adult mentors.

Oregon's Southridge High

"You begin designing a school around your core values and beliefs about learning and not around structures such as schedules and departments," says Boly in a report written by Bruce Miller, senior associate in the Laboratory's Evaluation Program.

The team based its planning and design on four principles:

Personalized student learning, emphasizing the real-world application of knowledge
Democratic decisionmaking
Community engagement
A professional learning community

"Three years after the first classes began," Miller writes, "these four principles have become the fabric that informs and guides the Southridge High School community."

Today, Southridge's 1,650 students attend one of four "neighborhoods," each group of 400 students receiving close attention from a team of adults: a vice principal, counselor, special education case manager, parent-volunteer coordinator, a dozen classified staff, and about 25 teachers. A Neighborhood Association Committee of staff, students, and parents manages its own budget, local operations, and improvement planning.

Miller's report, which will be published on the Laboratory's SLC Web site, captures Southridge's successful design and implementation strategies, providing a compass for others striking out for similar goals. There isn't a single best SLC model; Cotton's review includes 18 types of small schools. Whichever of the proven routes one takes to create a small school, the purpose of the journey is to nurture students' intellectual and personal development in a safe and friendly environment of excellence.

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