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We are in the busiest time of the new admissions season and have completed family interviews with over half of the Class of 2027. All signs point to landing a large and talented class.
As 8th graders continue to play a significant role in making the choice where they will attend high school, many seek a school with our student body enrollment, but some wonder if they’ll receive something quite different at a high school with a larger enrollment. We know that we are a small high school but one that also has the full high school experience. We know that at VCHS, a student can really know 150 students, most likely more than a student would really know at a larger school. We also know anecdotally the transformational nature of our school, but what does the research have to say about high schools our size?
To put VCHS in perspective, of the more than 2,000 National Association of Independent School member schools, 30% have 200 or fewer students. A quick synopsis of the research on small schools says this:
Students are completing more rigorous coursework.
-Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
Smaller, more intimate learning communities consistently deliver better results in academics when compared to their larger counterparts.
-Washington Post
Small schools are seen as enhancing strong personal bonds, home, and community involvement, improved instructional quality and accountability, and improved teacher working conditions and job satisfaction.
-Center for Mental Health in Schools, UCLA
Research shows overwhelmingly that small schools lead to greater student academic gains and personal adjustment.
-Dr. Stuart Grauer, Small Schools Coalition
Students perform better academically, have higher attendance rates, feel safer, experience fewer behavior problems and participate more frequently in extracurricular activities. A number of empirical articles document that students in small public and private high schools have higher achievement levels than those in large schools.
-Education Policy Center, Michigan State University
It’s not just important that VCHS has small class sizes (average 14) or a low faculty to student ratio (4:1). There’s something unique and transformational about a high school with fewer than 200 students. For VCHS students, our size is an advantage, especially with academic preparation for college and with personal development. There’s power in our numbers!
Steve O'Neil
Head of School
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