Mount Carmel’s enrollment at its peak decades ago hovered around 1,000 students. Due to multiple factors that have affected every Catholic school in the city, enrollment has decreased since then. Now, it is slowly trending up again, but the school size is not as much of a worry for administration. In fact, the current size of almost 600 kids may be the sweet spot.
Many kids come to MC following their relatives or for the Catholic values, but the actual size of the school is usually not something they would think of before attending. However, the current size allows the school to educate the “whole student.” This means that all of the students’ educational and social needs can be addressed within a smaller environment due to the higher attention to detail that faculty are able to give. Because of this, a smaller high school benefits the students more through personal curriculums and a stronger social environment.
A small high school gives teachers the opportunity to format their lesson plans according to the students’ current needs. Within larger schools though, teachers often have set lesson plans and cannot afford to use extra time for individual students due to their class size.
“My eighth-grade year I took Honors World History,” says junior Bryce Mason. “The teacher was absent in terms of teaching. He was just reading from a PowerPoint, not doing anything else. Some people would be left behind, while others were caught up.”
Mason attended Whitney Young Magnet School for seventh and eighth-grade. According to Young’s website, the high school and junior high have over 2,400 students combined, making them one of the larger institutions in Chicago. While they are one of the most prestigious high schools in the state, Mason found it hard to succeed in their large setting.
“It was very hard for us to get resources, to meet up and learn with the teachers,” he says. “Sometimes teachers wouldn’t hold office hours, and others would have them on one specific day at a very hard time to reach.”
He instantly had a better classroom experience when he came to MC.
“It’s a lot easier to get what you need,” he says. “I remember having trouble with the causes of World War I [in Mr. Nevrly’s AP World History class], and we actually took some time in class to go over all of the causes leading up to the United States joining the war.”
Junior George Gray, who previously attended Lindblom Academy with almost 1,200 students feels the same way.
“I was having a problem understanding the work [in Mrs. Smola’s Algebra 2 class] at the beginning of the year,” Gray says. “She was able to get in contact with my mom and get a personalized plan for me to help me understand it better. I’m doing much better in her class now.”
Additionally, teachers and faculty get to know their students better and thus care about them more. Most class sizes lie below twenty students and will likely not exceed twenty-five students. With this, faculty have the opportunity to learn about each student and establish a unique relationship.
“I especially like having the principal, [Mr. Tabernacki], knowing my name,” senior Dale Twine says. “It makes me feel like the school actually cares about me personally and wants me to succeed.”
Twine has been in a small school his whole life, graduating from Daystar Academy in a class of twenty-three students.
“When it comes to letters of recommendation, I’ve had a very good experience asking for them,” he says. “I just feel like I have a closer relationship with my teachers.”
These relationships often last long after students graduate. This is especially prevalent at MC, as several faculty members have taught the dads of their students.
“I had Mr. Antonietti my freshman year,” says senior Kyle Chevalier. “He coached and taught my dad, so even going back to then, my dad still has a relationship with him because he went to a small school like this. This led to [Mr. Antonietti] having a good relationship with me.”
Chevalier graduated from St. Christina Grammar School, another small school where he was one of thirty-one kids in his grade.
Better connections between teachers and students not only motivates students to perform better in the classroom, but also gives students a sense of comfort within school. This comfort is especially established when the whole student body knows each other.
In freshman year, some kids might know half of their grade, while others know people across all four grades. But by senior year, almost every kid personally knows a majority of the school, allowing them to better acclimate in the social atmosphere.
“We all have a shared experience of Mount Carmel,” Mason says. “It could go for someone who graduated 30 years ago, but you still know the kind of man going through these halls.”
Even more so than the relationships made with teachers, the relationships made with other students can last forever.
“It’s always nice knowing that you got a brother you could go to for anything, and we got 600 of them in the school,” Chevalier says. “I’ve made some lifelong friends that, even if I don’t see them much in college, I will still be close with them.”
Obviously, large schools have many student resources that small schools do not have, and many students have done just fine in a bigger setting. However, being in a small environment has something to offer for every student.
“A small school is optimal, not 100% necessary,” Twine says. “But, it can really make or break school for some students.”
