How’s it working?

At Mountlake Terrace High School graduations, Nalin Sood, a business teacher and basketball coach, used to look into the crowd and feel a sense of satisfaction that he knew about half the students there.

That was before Terrace broke itself into five small schools in fall 2003, thanks to a grant from the Gates Foundation.

Now, Sood knows a small number of students. He sees fewer teachers in the stands at sports games than in the past. While small schools haven’t killed community at Terrace, they have changed it, he said.

Christopher Ellinger, who teaches humanities in the Innovation school at Terrace, has had a different experience. Before small schools, his classes had such high turnover he never got to know his students. Now, his classroom has improved dramatically, he said.

When trying to grasp how small schools have changed Terrace, the picture depends on who is asked.

No one will argue the model is expensive and has challenged the high school’s budget. The program began in 2003, funded in part by a Gates Foundation grant. The foundation pulled its funding in summer 2005.

What has yet to be established is whether the extra cost is worthwhile, and whether small schools have helped students academically and socially.

First, small schools were supposed to help students through personalization. When students are known and feel connected to their school as a whole, they do better academically and don’t drop out, the theory goes.

To that end, teachers in the small schools model have a small number of students, and the same students for multiple years.

Students are supposed to take all their classes at their school, surrounded by the same cohort for four years.

While Ellinger and others say knowing their students better has improved learning and made the school more connected, others say small schools have ripped apart any sense of community at Terrace — without helping academics.

“It’s stuck a knife in activities and athletics,” said Kim Stewart, activities and athletics coordinator. “The number of kids participating has gone down drastically.”

Because advisors and coaches interact with a smaller group of students, recruiting is limited, Stewart said. The boys swim team, for example, has dropped from 25 or 30 pre-small-schools to nine or 10 this year, he said.

Fewer teachers want to advise or coach partly because small schools require more of them and they have less time, Stewart said.

Susan Lahti, physical education teacher, said that because of small schools, she knows fewer students. She said walking Terrace’s halls can be like walking around a strange city, and thinks small schools have led to a lack of ownership among students, as evidenced by frequent vandalism.

Science teacher Jonathan Tong said he can see the disadvantages of small schools, but believes they are outweighed by the rewards. Academics have improved because of accountability, he said.

“In a large comprehensive high school, there’s no accountability,” he said. “(Students have) all different teachers. You never know if you’ll see them again.”

On the other hand, sometimes having the same group year after year hurts academics, Sood said. Sometimes groups may be passionate learners while others may be less so, he said.

Those groups may be the result of self-selection, some say. English teacher Peter Breysse said that Terrace’s small schools have varying reputations for academic rigor.

“Students self-segregate by interest, by social skills, by academic expectations,” Breysse said, calling the small schools model a “disaster.”

The model was also supposed to strengthen communication between teachers.

Segregated by school into small groups, they’re supposed to work to align curriculum. The school used to be organized by academic departments.

Ellinger, the humanities teacher at Innovation, said the collaboration and support of his colleagues is now miles ahead of what it used to be. In Innovation, they create a four-year plan for curriculum.

Craig DeVine, a CTE instructor in the Innovation School, said that there is buy-in to the small schools model in his school.

But where there is not buy-in on the part of the staff, there seems to be a different picture.

“Socially, it’s fragmented staff,” Breysse said.

Another challenge of the small schools model is that it gives more work to teachers, many of whom already work long hours.

“It is hard work, there’s no doubt about it,” said DeVine, an ardent supporter of the model. “And sometimes you’re teaching a class that may not be your first choice.”

That’s because it’s harder to assign teachers throughout the school to create even class sizes, he said. Scheduling also is more difficult.

Faced with those realities, Terrace has softened its small schools model in recent years, opening more classes to all students. This year, for example, was the first year that juniors and seniors could take any class at the school.

Terrace principal Greg Schwab said he sees the benefits and drawbacks in the model. While he has loosened parameters, he said he wants to retain what’s good about small schools. That includes personalization and more meaningful conversations about students among staff, he said.

Though changes at the school are not over, he wants to turn the discussion in a different direction.

“We need to put the focus now not on the model, but on what happens in the classroom with teachers and kids each day,” he said. “We want there to be more conversations about that.”