Katherine Quimby Johnson is a freelance writer and editor, and writes the local news column for the News Citizen in Morrisville. I’ve been following the debate over small schools for what feels like decades. For all the talk about the merits and costs of small schools, there are two point s I have yet to see raised. Both concern the student experience in small elementary schools. The first is teacher and student compatibility. Teachers may all use the same methods and be equally professional, but as human beings, they have different personalities. So do students.  Sometimes, a particular teacher and student combination may not work well. Take two students, one of whom is empathetic and sensitive, and one who likes to test limits and lacks self-discipline.  READ MORE If they are placed in a classroom with a teacher who expects strict adherence to class guidelines, the sensitive student may well become withdrawn and disengaged, while the limit-tester may find self-discipline.  Conversely, with a warm, outgoing teacher whose enforcement of guidelines is lax, the sensitive student may thrive, but the boundary-tester may become a chronic disruptor.  In a school where the student population is large enough to allow two or more classrooms per grade, both students will be better served because they can be placed in the classroom appropriate for them. My second point concerns students’ ability to develop social skills. Vermont defines small schools as those serving 100 or fewer students. I think of these as tiny schools, and they are what I experienced growing up in Peacham in the 1960s and 1970s. With a total grade population of eight or nine, we were always in multi-grade classrooms, but even then, the total number of students remained small.  When I was nine, my school had just 18 students. While all but one of my teachers were excellent, I missed out socially.  I was a shy girl, and formed only one deep friendship. The limited number of peers with whom I had daily contact meant a lack of practice in meeting a variety of different people and functioning in a larger group. As a result, leaving town for high school was a major, traumatic adjustment. My teachers prepared me well in the basics, but I missed out on instruction in art, physical education, and library skills. We had minimal music instruction just once a month. All this put me at a disadvantage in both high school and college. I was so aware of the difference between a small school and a tiny one that my husband and I considered the school district before buying a house.  Raising our daughter in Cambridge, Vt., in the 1990s, when the elementary school had two or three classrooms per grade, we watched our shy child thrive socially because she learned from kindergarten how to adjust to a slightly different group of students every year.  In addition, she had weekly instruction from specialist instructors in the arts, physical education, and other opportunities that were simply not available to tiny schools. One argument against combining schools is the long bus rides, and that’s a good point. My ride to my small high school took an hour, and even for a high school student, it was exhausting. It certainly isn’t something a kindergartner should experience.  However, that ride made five stops in three other towns before heading another 11 miles to its final destination; by car, the drive was 30 minutes. If adjoining tiny towns combined elementary schools, the bus rides would not be onerous, and the result would still be a small school, with all the benefits so ably described by so many others. I applaud the school districts that have voluntarily chosen to merge with other tiny districts. Their students will benefit socially, just as taxpayers will benefit from having fewer buildings to maintain. Read the story on VTDigger here: When schools are too small for kids to thrive. ...read more read less