Part 1: Making Our Schools Feel Smaller

I work at an elementary school with over one-thousand students. Prekindergarten, kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth and fifth grade classes are strewn throughout the main building. There is an office inside. Inside that office, you will find the principal, two assistant principals, a literacy coach, and two guidance counselors.

Exit the main building and walk down the covered pathway. Double doors welcome you to a three-story building, with second grade, third grade, fourth grade and fifth grade classrooms — and empty classrooms too.

Our school feels huge. Disconnected.

How about a primary school and an intermediate school?

Since we have two assistant principals and two school counselors, there can be a primary assistant principal, a primary school counselor, an intermediate assistant principal, and an intermediate school counselor.

Can you see it? The school getting smaller and smaller, more connected, more like a family.

The three-story building would need to be the intermediate building because primary students cannot be on the second or third floor. There are actually offices in the three-story building so the intermediate assistant principal and the intermediate guidance counselor can move right in.

Yes. There are behavior problems in that three-story building. Of course this would help with those behavior problems. The intermediate students would know that an administrator and a guidance counselor are close by, that somebody is paying attention and that somebody cares.

Teachers would know that an administrator and a guidance counselor are close by, that somebody is paying attention and that somebody cares.

Parents would love it. Why wouldn’t they?

I can hear the conversation now.

“My child’s school is so innovative. They turned the school into two smaller schools. There is a primary building and an intermediate building. The principal oversees the whole school and then there is an assistant principal and a guidance counselor for the primary school and an assistant principal and a guidance counselor for the intermediate school. Everything just seems so much more organized.”

I understand that this may not work out perfectly, and that third grade may have to be split up due to logistics, but it is a start — it is a start to bringing a sense of community back to our school.

“Creating a better school may be as simple as creating a smaller one. The results of two recent studies indicate that small schools may be the remedy for lots of things that are wrong with public education.”

Let’s make it even smaller.

Almost every Wednesday, each grade level comes together to talk. I am on the second grade team. Eleven of us meet in our team leader’s classroom.

There are just too many of us.

So why not have two team leaders per grade level? They can split the pay and they can alternate going to team leader meetings. Half of the teachers can meet with one team leader and half of the teachers can meet with the other team leader. The groups can stay the same or change weekly; each team can make that decision. What matters is that the size of the group would be cut in half.

I started writing in November as a way to find my voice.

This week, I came into work and I accepted what has been obvious for so long. Teachers are not happy.

It doesn’t mean they don’t laugh. It doesn’t mean they don’t like their students but it means that if you Google the ten companies with the happiest employees, you will not find a public school system listed.

I realized that for now, instead of just sharing what goes on in my room, I want to start looking for solutions. So, this week, I paid close attention. And for me, I needed to start with the size of the school, something I have thought about ever since I started working here. Just the other day, I told a friend that some days I feel like I am walking into a New York City subway station.

Chaos. Noise. And not always the good kind.

I remember doing my first teaching practicum at a small preschool in Gainesville, Florida. A house converted into a school. We became a family. It was when I knew I wanted to be a teacher.

“Many teachers told the researchers that teaching at a small school reminded them why they became teachers in the first place.”

We are in desperate need of an educational overhaul, and if we don’t start figuring out how to make happier teachers, we are not going to have young people wanting to grow up to be teachers.

My daughter is 20. She loves kids. In high school she babysat, tutored and was an ice skating coach. She is now in college, and she still tutors. She is majoring in industrial engineering. The other day, Hannah shared a story with me. Her roommate had heard her tutoring and told her that she would be a great teacher. My heart stopped. She would be a great teacher, but….

How sad that I feel this way. We have to find solutions, and we have to find people to listen.

There are wonderful young people out there who would be great teachers, yet I can’t be the only one dissuading them from choosing this profession.

For now, I am going to continue with this series, An Educational Overhaul: It Starts With Happier Teachers

Next week, Part 2: Shared Decision Making, Allowing Teachers to Have a Voice