Teachers in small schools are likely to expend extra efforts to ensure that the students achieve and the school succeeds. The benefits to the school increase along with its autonomy and separation from other district schools, since there are fewer time- and energy draining bureaucratic hurdles to overcome, and the ability to develop its own distinctiveness is empowering.
Some small schools operate in a structure totally their own.
Most aspects of their operation are controlled by the host school administration, and the teachers may have duties in both the parent and small schools. Students and teachers remain together for some or all coursework. It is usually overlaid upon the department structure of the traditional middle or high school that hosts it, which restricts the amount of change the arrangement can create. This arrangement has some of the properties of a house plan and is also dependent on its larger host school for its existence. They almost always serve students over a several year period, and usually have their own instructional program.