Many of the strategies in this report suggest ways to operate schools cost-effectively, but they also affect ways in which teachers teach, students learn, and parents and other members of the community work with the schools. The authors hope everyone who reads this report will consider not only ways in which these strategies can benefit the bottom line, but, also ways in which people interact in their schools and communities.

For example, many teachers are already overwhelmed with responsibilities that take time away from teaching. Parents, older students, volunteers from the community, college work study students, all can help take over the minor responsibilities that burden teachers. Volunteers can also provide support for individual students who are struggling, and for augmenting classroom activities, but they need to know teachers want their help and what kind of help would be useful. There are examples throughout this report of schools that effectively use helping hands from the community.

One of the most striking things about the good small schools in this report is the maturity of their students. Students serve their schools in a variety of ways - on the school board, in student council - and are involved in major decisions affecting the school. Teachers, board members and administrators pay attention to them because they are informed, intelligent, responsible, and serious in their commitment. Students can contribute valuable ideas for improving the school and for creating any plan for reconfiguration, including the design of new facilities.

Parents should play an important role in schools, not only because their involvement encourages their children to take learning seriously, but because parents are a tremendous resource. The schools too can be an important resource for parents and can encourage good parenting.

Recommendations to citizens and taxpayers.

1. Challenge plans to build mega-schools wherever they are proposed.
2. Advocate for appropriately smaller schools.
3. Become informed about school size issues.
4. Organize to effect change.

Recommendations for planners and architects.

1. Plan schools that are sized appropriately to advance student achievement.
2. Plan construction that makes, rather than breaks, connections to communities.
3. Develop innovative ways to increase the square feet available to schools but reduce the number of square feet that need to be built, maintained and operated.
4. Work with communities rather than against them.
5. Challenge arbitrary impositions of minimum size from funding agencies.
6. Involve the entire community in planning.
7. Think holistically and make the school the center of its community.

Recommendations for policymakers.

1. Create a policy climate that supports the construction of smaller schools.
2. Change policy that negatively affects the kind of schools that can be built, including:
   • The way school construction is funded (an equity issue),
   • The specifications for school buildings and building sites,
   • Provisions for securing and honoring community engagement in the construction planning,
   • Indirect influences such as rigid expectations for curriculum, technology, and teacher certification.
3. Do not impose minimum sizes for schools.
4. Create policies to facilitate the building of new smaller schools in big cities and their suburbs.
5. Develop alternatives to rural school consolidation.