I believe in the effectiveness of small.

For seven years I taught in a small school that worked on many levels. The leadership was clearheaded; the teachers were committed; and the community was passionate about the place. Westhampton Elementary School had approximately 140 students and I believe that small population helped allow the principal, teachers and community to excel.

The four Northampton elementary schools are also excelling, and I believe their small size plays a large part in their success.

The Northampton School Committee will decide this spring if the schools will remain small and effective.

This is no big secret: Northampton does not have enough money to continue its current services; in fact, we are looking at $5.4 million deficit for next year. One of the ideas for cutting costs in the city is to reduce the number of elementary schools from four to three.

Mary Clare Higgins put together a Strategic Planning Committee to look at our school system. She wanted to know what works and what does not - and how we could reduce costs. In talking with members of that committee, I found out that they worked extremely hard yet did not come to a consensus about how to save money.

One thing on which they did agree, though, is that Northampton's students are outperforming many communities of similar size and achieving on par with the likes of Longmeadow, a community with no short supply of money to spend. Northampton schools compete alongside Longmeadow, even though we educate many more children who live in poverty and teach many more children who do not always speak English at home.

Here's what the committee could not agree on: whether to close an elementary school to save money. They agreed on many cost-saving and money-generating ideas. The school-closing idea, though, divided the committee.

Members of the Strategic Planning Committee say that closing a school will save the city between $200,000 and $400,000 a year. In my opinion, it's not worth it.

What we get when we have small, local elementary schools are children walking to class; families committed to the school down the street; principals and teachers who know every student; people who really know each other. These are not small matters. They are the building blocks on which our elementary school success is erected.

When children walk to class, they are setting up lifetime habits of walking and getting to know the neighborhood they live in. Children say hello to their neighbors as they walk to school; living strands of community are formed.

The family support at the Robert K. Finn Ryan Road School where I teach is passionate. As testimony to that passion, parents at the school raised thousands of dollars to send children to Nature's Classroom. Would those parents have raised the money if they lived 10 miles from their school? I don't know. What I do believe is that connection and proximity are strongly linked.

At small schools, people know each other. I don't mean they just know each other's names. They know each other's spouse's names and each other's addresses and birthdays and favorite desserts. Malcolm Gladwell, the best-selling author of "The Tipping Point" and most recently "Outliers," called this effectiveness of small, "The Rule of 150."

He wrote about the rule in "Tipping Point," describing some business owners who will not have any more than 150 employees working in any factory. Once more than 150 employees are working at a site, the manufacturing plant is split in two. The U.S. Army does the same, though, according to Gladwell, they split squadrons at 200 soldiers. Any more soldiers than that and their ability to win is diminished. That's what generals believe.

The reason for the effectiveness of small is that people have a limit to the number of social relationships that they can manage. In a large group, more than 400, social thinkers say it is difficult for people to keep track of each other. Elementary schools are buildings full of social relationships. If they sour, because the population is too big, then they are not as effective, I believe.

Learning is a social endeavor. Kids, families and teachers must know each other for there to be true learning. Large schools make that knowing each other difficult.

To keep small schools we need more money. City voters this spring may be asked to raise their property taxes - not just to keep four elementary schools, but to save the jobs of police officers, firefighters, teachers and plow operators.

In talking about all this with a friend, he suggested we remember what President Barack Obama said in his inauguration speech two weeks ago.

"For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break; the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours."

In keeping with Obama's idea, what if every city employee, teachers included, took a one-year pay freeze, so that we could save a few jobs and maybe even an elementary school. This would only happen, of course, if city unions were convinced of the seriousness of the deficit, and that could only happen if administrators were clear and open about their budgets. Police officers, teachers and firefighters would have to trust that the money they save by not accepting a raise would actually save jobs.

I want to be open here. If teachers get cut, I will surely be one of those pared away. I have all of five months of seniority in Northampton. This idea of a pay freeze comes not out of self-preservation, rather it is rooted in the soil of saving what is best about our community. I took a $5,000 pay cut to teach in Northampton. It was worth it. But if the community schools get too big, I believe experienced teachers, like me, may not be as willing to make that kind of sacrifice to work here.

Greg Kerstetter, who teaches fifth grade at the R.K. Finn Ryan Road School in Northampton, writes a monthly column for the Gazette. He can be reached at stetter08@comcast.net.