Breaking Up is Always Hard to Do

SLC, Small Learning Communities. Like many comprehensive, large high schools, which seem to be the next target of the public school enemies, we are evaluating and implementing breaking down the high school into a smaller number of "schools", "academies", or "houses". The logistics of such a change are enormous. Most schools have taken an extended number of years to move from the common high school to small schools.

Small schools, breaking up large high schools into various "sections" is really nothing new. It was looked at in the 1960s as schools began to increase in size at breakneck speed. The relationships--getting to know students better--is one of the benefits. I wonder though if a lot of it isn't American nostalgia for the smaller rural schools of past memory.

At any rate, the SLC change has led to raucous debate and discussion within the school. It is a delicate thing, actually, to take professionals used to working independently and move them toward more of a team, middle school model. [Ironically, many middle schools are moving away from their common form and moving more toward K-8 schools or junior high structure.]

The main difficulty isn't change itself, but rather making change work positively. There seem to be several important components in most of the literature I have seen or heard through colleagues. First, strong visionary leadership. Second, willingness to take risks. Third, supporting staff and giving them the autonomy to be part of the change, rather than forcing change top down.

Having volunteered to be on our first "Academy" small school team back in 2000, I can see both pros and cons for the approach. I still know a large number of students because of the relationships formed on the team. But, in the end, the challenge for me was dealing with the immaturity of ninth grade students all day. That isn't where my strengths lie, and I know that. The architectural problem in breaking up into small schools is fitting strengths and talents to the structure, and adapting the structure to staff talents. Few successful organizations spend time assigning personnel to responsibilities where they are weak. A tenacious challenge is for administration to let go and trust its professional staff. In other words, the current governance structure of the schools tends to be the very roadblock needed to be overcome to successfully restructure. Otherwise, I'm afraid small schools will become another in a long line of failed solutions to ill-defined problems that circle in and out of favor.

What we really need in the schools is a good divorce attorney to negotiate an amicable breakup.