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Small Schools Advantages

The terror and the following fear that parents have as a result of their experience in school violence {by way of witnessing the violence or hearing of it}, is now making the parents to wonder if they have options. The question is, are there schools that are violent free where their children could go and acquire education safely without any threat of attack on them? This article seeks to address this question and present the option that is very much desired. The option is Small Schools.  A web site that analyzes how advantageous small schools are over the large schools is www.smallschools.cps.k12.il.us. This site is the source for the material of this work.

 

Small Schools are refer to as small because the students are fewer in number, the classrooms are smaller in size, the premises of the school is relatively small, even the teachers are fewer in number. They are called small not in terms of the quality of education obtainable from them. The entire community of the school is small, which actually means that everyone in the school is known by name; this makes it difficult for a student to get lost unnoticed. Offering a student help in a situation of need is easier. It is also easier to identify a child with one negative tendency or the other.

 

A student of a small school has this to say about his teachers: ‘the teachers always give you attention. They really care about us. My teacher knows when I am doing good or not.’ {Wasley et al, 2000, page37}

Mark Fertel, is a teacher at Best Practice High School, and said ‘it is much more difficult for a kid to fall through cracks and there are less cracks to fall through.’ {Chicago Sun Times, October 1, 2001, page14}         

Jose, a student of Instituto Del Progreso Latino, said of his school: ‘I enjoy going here because it is a small population and you can get more attention in school.’

Another student also describes his school as follows: ‘Here, we get a lot of attention from the teachers. The classes are small. That’s good too. The teachers want to be here, you know that about them because of the differences between public and private salaries, all that kind of thing. They wouldn’t come here if they didn’t want to be here. They do put the effort out, they do help you.’ {John Dipirro, Chicago Sun times, August 31, 2000, pg7}

A student of Young Women’s Leadership Charter School said, ‘They know you well in a small school. The teachers at my large school didn’t even know my name.’    

 

In small schools the chances of graduation are higher than those of large schools. The rates of attendance recorded are higher in small schools than in large schools.

The Executive Director, Chicago High School Redesign Initiative, Pat Ford said of their mission on small schools: ‘The goals of small schools are to increase graduation rates and the variety of quality opportunities and choices for kids. All of the schools we created will be college prep. We want to make certain that we are reaching students that are not ordinarily reached in large comprehensive schools’.

 

Security is more guaranteed in small schools than what is obtained in large schools.

Violence and crimes are very much less in small schools as compared to large schools.

It is clear from the above discussion that small schools are the perfect option for large schools, for the parents that are so scared of the safety of their children, as school violence cases are very rear in the small schools.