The elements essential to a good small schools include: autonomy, good leadership, a defined mission, good working relationships within the school and with larger community, equity for students, respect for all, a supportive culture, and a commitment to academic achievement. Though the recipe for mixing these ingredients can vary, each must be present. A school is a social structure, the result of a unique combination of people, place, history, and culture at a specific moment, and those who run schools must be sensitive to those factors, as well as to how they will change over time.

We expect change whenever a principal or superintendent departs, but each teacher who leaves, or new student who enters, also alters a school. Such small changes may be imperceptible, but they have a cumulative effect, as will more distant shifts in the community, state, and nation. Through all the changes in personnel, changes demographics, in the political environment and in educational policy and practice a school must, as noted before, "Keep shape and flow."

Autonomy: Good small schools must have an autonomy that cannot be taken away except as the result of egregious mishandling of people or resources. Those in authority--the principal and members of the board--must be able to hire and fire teachers, as well as to allocate money as they see fit. Having real autonomy means that authorities in the school take responsibility for their decisions and cannot claim powerlessness. Having such autonomy urges people to be responsive and to think carefully about the sustainability of the school, not just their own future.

All the schools in this study have such autonomy, some because they are charter schools, others because they are in enlightened districts or have fought for the right to make decisions. At Avalon Charter School in St. Paul, Minnesota, teachers own and run the school. At Laurel-Concord in Nebraska, the board and the superintendent work in such harmony that they have achieved a remarkable level of trust, resulting in near-autonomy for the school. The four small schools carved out of Morris High have been given autonomy over their budgets by the City of New York and operate independently, even, to a large extent, of each other.

Strong Leadership: Strong leaders do not exert their control forcibly and are not autocratic. Strong leaders have the confidence to hire the best people they can--who will not always agree with them--and to give those people responsibility and the right to voice their opinions. Strong leaders also listen well and convey their decisions clearly.

At MATCH in Boston, three such leaders divide responsibilities and have created structures that allow them to listen to each individual in the school. At High Tech High, one principal leads the school with the advice and consent of a vocal and confident faculty. At STAR, the principal leads, but with the consensus of the parents and community in a system of negotiation based on the Navajo philosophy that all participants must feel valued. At SOTA and IDDS, charismatic principals with experience and savvy lead by example and by the strength of their personalities. Together with their teachers, students, and community, they are creating new structures and opportunities for everyone. All of this suggests that having a good principal is critically important to the success of a small school.

The Strength to Make Choices: A successful small school must define its mission and how best to fulfill it. What small schools give up in breadth, they must make up for in depth. Access to the Internet, however, makes breadth easier to accomplish than ever before: students studying online with mentors or supporting teachers are able to investigate topics and even take whole courses that would previously have been unavailable to them, without losing the essential connection to a responsive adult. Learning to examine subjects deeply is possible in small schools where teachers and students know each other well and where students regularly have a chance to write about and present their research.

At The Met, student interests help define their courses of study, so what Met students as a group are investigating at any given time can range over many fields. Each student develops a plan that integrates his or her area of interest into core subjects the student will need in order to understand what he or she is studying, meet state requirements, and get into college. This requires a high level of adaptability, knowledge, and work by an advisor, as well as the excellent support system offered by The Met and its parent institution, The Big Picture Company.

Schools such as Truman High School, High Tech High, and Avalon that follow project or internship based curricula depend on highly skilled teacher/advisors to guide their students through a demanding course of study they design together. These individualized programs typically require that students meet benchmarks in order to pass to the next level of study.

Schools such as SOTA, FALA, and C.C. Blaney have defined an area of expertise and offer their students a rich curriculum in the arts, which they pursue not only for its own sake, but also to foster an understanding of more traditional subjects. Schools like the four in the South Bronx also define an area of interest to appeal to their students, but use that as a base for teaching core subjects and critical thinking. It is possible to achieve this range without offering a full palette of subjects because students can choose between several small high schools in the Bronx; if students live in more rural places or poor districts, they can use the internet and distance learning to study subjects such as AP courses their small schools cannot offer.

Internal Community: A good small school needs to develop a strong community of students, parents, teachers, administrators, and staff so that everyone feels ownership of the school. If people in a school identify with it and participate in decisions affecting the school, they will nurture and protect it. A school that has a culture in which people feel trusted and integral to the success of the whole is a very different place from a school in which people feel marginalized, distrusted, and alienated. In the first school, students, teachers, parents, and members of the community contribute to the success of the school; in the second, students, and even their parents, sometimes act in passively aggressive, or even overtly hostile, ways to sabotage the school. Not only does this subvert the trust necessary for effective teaching and learning, but it also costs money because the school must pay more for maintenance, janitorial services, security personnel, and equipment.

At each of the schools in this study, the relationships between people are strong. At Camino Nuevo there is a powerful sense of ownership expressed not only by teachers, but by parents and students as well. People know that it is their school and are proud of it. The same is true for STAR, FALA, World of Opportunity, and all the others--people love these schools and believe they are helping them create a better life for themselves. Students at The Met talk about their school, and in particular their advisors, with great appreciation. At High Tech High, teachers are so pleased to be a part of the school that their enthusiasm is infectious. It is impossible to imagine these schools being successful if they had not first created a strong internal community with a culture of pride and caring about the school and in each other.

External Community: A strong external community is also essential to the success of a good small school. Community members, businesses, and policymakers can offer tangible benefits: the greater likelihood of passing a bond; the sharing of old facilities (or the building of new ones) with partners; and the increased number of mentors, tutors, volunteers and committed school board members who will come forward to share in the life of the school. Neighbors protect schools that contribute to the sustainability of the neighborhood by increasing economic vitality, offering opportunities for recreation and lifelong learning, raising the level of education, and making the area more attractive.

Schools can accomplish this in a variety of ways. The communities around Camino Nuevo, The Met, WOO, and STAR, for example, keep watchful eyes on the schools when they are not in session. The schools in turn contribute to the economic revitalization of their communities in the ways all small schools do--they bring students, teachers, parents, and members of the community to the area. Some of these people shop or use services. All contribute to the social, recreational and intellectual life of the community. Schools raise property values because communities without schools are less attractive to new tenants and homeowners, and they add to the life of the community by offering programs and facilities to which people might not otherwise have access. Schools also offer people in the community the opportunity to volunteer in ways that can make them feel more positive about themselves, their community, and the future.

A school that develops partnerships with its community becomes a nexus, bringing together people from different backgrounds, ages, and experience to share their expertise. IDDS has begun to create strong partnerships with Wells Fargo and Target, and volunteers from those businesses contribute a lot of time to working with IDDS students. The Met, STAR, C.C. Blaney and R.D. Schroder, Camino Nuevo, Laurel-Concord, STAR, WOO, and the four Bronx schools are all examples of the ways in which good small schools strengthen neighborhoods, and their neighbors in turn help the school.

Equity and Respect for All Students: Equity--the equal access to, and respect for, individuals--is evident in all the schools in this study, and was a key element in their selection for this study. Schools had to be open to students of all backgrounds and abilities, and on review through observation and focus groups with students, show that they treat students with respect.

There is an inherent tension between the concept of a diverse student body and the strength of a unified and unifying culture. Schools such as IDDS promote diversity. Those like Camino Nuevo have consciously given precedence to serving people in their immediate neighborhood. In homogeneous schools, students develop a strong sense of self, of their individual and collective histories, and of their cultures. There may be less tension within the school than in one with a multi-cultural population. In a homogeneous school, the curriculum and program can be tailored to fit the needs of a particular population.

In a school that celebrates diversity, students have opportunities to work, play, and develop lasting bonds with those of different backgrounds. They may learn to be more tolerant of people from different cultures than they would if they attended a school with a homogeneous population.

There are merits to both approaches - diversity and homogeneity, but there is a constant. To work best, particularly for students from marginalized and minority backgrounds, a school should be small, and each member of its community must be treated equitably and with respect, not only by the people in the school, but by the way the school is structured. Students must have equal access to the school; everyone must have a voice.

Respect for Individuals: One of the most important benefits of small schools is that people know each other well enough to trust each other and know each other's strengths and limitations. This means that they act in very different ways towards one another than they do in large schools. It means, for example, that students do not always have to be within the range of adult supervision and can enjoy being on their own or with a small group of friends. Adults do not just trust their students; they trust in their own intuition and knowledge about those students, believing they will detect when a student needs help. In a small school, people will be likely to notice a person who is going through a difficult time and intervene. Their ability to do so depends in large part on the trust they have developed in knowing each other well.

In schools like The Met, H.S. Truman, Avalon, Oak Valley, IDDS, STAR, and WOO, the depth of knowledge that adults have about their students is extraordinary. This understanding of a student psychologically, emotionally, and academically provides a strong base for the student to grow, because an advisor and teacher will challenge him or her appropriately. The downside is, of course, that students come to rely on and value their advisors and teachers so much that if one leaves, some students will feel abandoned, particularly those who are most vulnerable.

Academic Achievement: It is essential that a school has the highest academic expectations for its students and a commitment to help each of them achieve the greatest success possible. Unless teachers and parents believe that their children are capable of learning, they will not create the means for it to happen. Schools like MATCH, STAR, Blaney and Schroder, Camino Nuevo, and WOO show that standards should not be watered down by justifications--the children are poor, are minorities, or do not speak English--because that gets in the way of creating the structures that will help them learn most effectively.

The administrators and teachers at MATCH could have thrown up their hands when they realized their incoming 9th grade students had 5th and 6th grade reading and math skills and abandoned their intention to help these students reach high levels of academic work. But they did not. Instead, they looked at what was necessary to help these students achieve at the level necessary if they were to go to college. MATCH designed a system to support students, which also required that they work very hard. The leadership at Camino Nuevo could have dumbed down its curriculum, or lowered expectations for its minority population, but it did not. Instead, realizing that parents are an essential element in a child's education, Camino Nuevo designed a way to help parents be effectively involved. STAR school could have said it was impossible to work with students who must stay home to participate in family events, but it did not. Instead, teachers use the Internet and a liaison to let its students keep up with their studies even if they miss weeks of school. The leaders at WOO could have turned their back on the students who were rejected by the educational system in Birmingham, but they have not. Instead, they have welcomed them and found a way to support them even when they are in trouble, need housing, clothing, food, or transportation, or have to stay away for years at a time. What ties these schools together is the realization that their students could achieve at high levels but needed innovative, creative, and responsive support systems to do so.