<p>EK:</p>
<p>Our school at one point considered applying for a Gates grant. In fact, it received a pilot grant to see if it would be feasible to break the school into autonomous small schools of 400 students each. A majority of parents were against the autonomous schools, so the grant was not pursued. We now have small learning communities with their own deans and GCs and some core teachers, but with flexibility for students to take classes in other learning communities as necessary. I thought that the Gates model was too rigid. I hope that over time, the Gates Foundation learns from its experiences and becomes less rigid.</p>