Smaller Learning Communities
In a high school of thousands, students can easily become lost in the crowds with teachers never learning their names or even realizing if they are still in class. When the school shuffles and reorganizes itself into smaller learning communities, only a fraction of the masses are included in one group. Rather than 1,000 freshmen circulating through ten English teachers, the group is divided into five sections of 200 students with a handful of teachers focused on those students within their group.

The same is true for all core subjects and electives making a smaller community within the school of just 200 freshmen with the same teachers throughout the day. This gives students a home within the large campus and it gives teachers a better opportunity to connect with and understand the difficulties facing their students.

Benefits of Smaller Learning Communities
In a smaller group, teachers are able to offer students more time and energy. The teachers are also able to keep better tabs on students who struggle and can discuss the students amongst themselves to identify needs and ideas to work with individuals as the group of teachers share the same students throughout the day.

Smaller learning communities are also often focused on specific interests of the students and have coursework designed to boost student interest and learning in their chosen area. For example, a student can select to be in the Healthcare or Business smaller learning community. The teachers within that community structure the course materials and assignments to offer greater depth in that particular area.

Large high schools have many advantages for students in extracurricular activities and opportunities to excel in outstanding programs. These opportunities are still available, even with the learning communities. Students are able to take their traditional electives and have a better chance of support from other core teachers as they work to balance their course load, which is not always the case with larger classes in traditional high school programs.