Are small schools better than big schools

[citylove101]

I think that the size of the school makes a big difference according to SES. Put a whole lot of poor kids in a huge school and it'll amplify excisting problems, kids will get lost and be alienated, and the student body will be tough to control. It's like putting adults in huge public housing projects. The concentration of poverty just makes a bad situation worse.

Small schools will work better for these kids. Here in NYC some of the best performing schools are huge and work because most their students are middle class or at least clearly hold middle class values. And many of the schools for the low sES kids that work best are relatively small

OTOH, small classes work better than big ones for kids across the SES spectrum.

[carroll4628]

I thought about this issue when we moved to Texas. In Maryland, the high schools in our county had 1200-1800 students, so 300-450 kids per graduating class. I grew up in Fargo and graduated with 250. Hubby in Santa Barbara graduated with 800. In Texas some of the 'better/best' high schools have 5000+ kids. So they divide the high school into 9-10 grade at one school and 11-12 grade at another school. I can't even comprehend how this is good, but they have 40+ national merit scholars and a whole slew of kids taking AP classes and doing all sorts of wonderful things.
Like one poster mention, I suppose with 1000 kids in your graduating class you're more likely to find a group of people that you "click with" (be it academics, clubs, sports) than if you were at a school with only 100 kids?

[Vic 2.0]

I don't think the size of the school makes much of a difference, necessarily. Student:teacher ratio, however, can be a huge factor. Having fewer students per teacher and counselor is a plus. Having more students in each classroom (or so many that there's a waiting list to see the counselor!) is generally a negative.

Students are better equipped when they have a teacher who has the time to work with each student one-on-one as needed.

[harrison21]

I work in a small school currently, but have previously always been in much larger schools. I think we do have a stronger sense of community an a more cohesive staff. Staff can work together more because we're just closer by nature of the school. I've been in some schools where there are so many staff members that people literally only really "know" they're grade level and/or content team and don't really get to associate with anyone else.

However, bigger schools often have a lot more resources. This is a bigger deal for me because I'm a special ed teacher. I'm responsible for students in K-5. The issues I run into are often not caused by the number of students I have, but by the wide span of grade levels. It's impossible to effectively work around 6 grade level teams and truly do the best thing for each specific grade level. In all of the big schools I've been in, they have a special ed teacher per grade level. The services were so much more cohesive and it was so much better for the kids. They also often had extra resources like title 1 teachers, TAs, etc. that my school is just too small for. We have a title 1 teacher, but she runs into the same problem I do in that she has to do K-5. A caseload of 25 students in K-5 is a whole different ball game than a caseload of 25 3rd graders. We're also really stretched thin with basic things like the lunch duty, recess duty, and people to run clubs and activities. We may have a leg up with the "family" feel of our school, but bigger schools offer so many more opportunities for students.

[Boston_Burbs]

I am a big supporter of small schools k-8. I went to a small, private school k-5 where there were only 3 class' and 6 full time teachers. We did independent learning in math through the Sadlier-Oxford math series with pre tests and post test. I remember some students being 2-3 grades ahead based on their learning.

Reading was done in smaller groups based on reading levels, again, we would interact with students in other grades based on our reading levels. I think it worked really well in building concepts, but fell short in teaching study skills.

I do however, think that going to a small high school could be a disadvantage due to the possibly limited offerings and the requirements for college admissions.

[Coldjensens]

FOr a while our kids were in a small school where they had 4 kids in one class and 8 in the other, so they were compbined for most subjects into a 4/5 grade class with a whopping 12 students. They really loved it and talk about that school fondly.