Madison Memorial High School's students endured two nightmarish days — an Oct. 16 fight in which a student was knocked unconscious, seven students were arrested and one was charged with a racial hate crime, and an early dismissal the next day amid rumors of a gun on campus and threats of retaliation.

When classes resumed Monday, administrators turned to Memorial's unique social structure, and its 80 "backyards" composed of 25 students apiece, to begin restoring students' trust and a sense of calm to the West Side campus.

"I know many of us had friends that were involved," junior Dareon Henderson told her classmates over the school's public address system as they gathered for special backyard discussions of the fight. "However, don't let their bad behavior set the tone for our school."

This was the type of small, personal environment envisioned by federal education policymakers who created the Smaller Learning Communities Grant program after two students killed 13 people and then themselves in 1999 at the 1,800-student Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. The gunmen were described as alienated outcasts.

In 2000, Memorial became the first Madison school to land one of the U.S. Department of Education grants. It was awarded $438,000 to create its neighborhood social structure. West High School became the second, winning a $500,000 grant in 2002 and reorganizing its ninth and 10th grades around core courses.

In August, district officials were thrilled to learn the district was awarded $5.5 million over five years for its four major high schools — Memorial, West, La Follette and East — to build stronger connections among students and faculty by creating so-called "small learning communities" that divide each high school population into smaller populations.

Officials cite research showing that schools with 500 to 900 students tend to be the most effective, and recent findings suggest that students at schools with small learning communities are more likely to complete ninth grade, less likely to become involved in violence and more likely to attend college after graduation. However, the latest federal study failed to find a clear link between small learning communities and higher academic achievement.

Each Madison high school will develop its own plan for how to spend the grant money. Their common goals: Make school feel like a smaller, friendlier place where all students feel included. Shrink the racial achievement gap, raise graduation rates, expand the courses available and improve planning for further education and careers.

The high schools, with enrollments ranging from 1,600 to 2,000 students, are being redesigned as their overall scores on state 10th grade reading and math tests are worrisome, having declined slightly the past two years.

But there are promising indicators regarding conditions in the schools. Police calls related to student safety have declined 46 percent over the past four semesters, according to a State Journal analysis published in August.

Because it got a head start on the other schools, Memorial offers the clearest picture of how the district's high schools might be reshaped under the new grant.

"While the other schools may not look exactly like that, everybody's primary interest when we wrote the grant was to make schools smaller, more comfortable and more personal for kids — and for adults," said Pam Nash, the assistant superintendent overseeing the district's middle and high schools, who was Memorial's principal in 2001, when the social structure was reorganized, and is coordinating the new federal grant.

Memorial's population of 1,924 students is divided into four neighborhoods of about 500 students apiece.

Each neighborhood contains a mix of students in grades nine through 12, and the students remain together, with the same assistant principal and guidance counselor, for their entire high school tenure. In turn, each neighborhood is further divided into 20 backyards — units that then plan community service projects and allow time for students to socialize.

When classes are in session, students still use all parts of the building, not just the area near their neighborhood meeting places.

Many Memorial students and staff members praise the school's shift to small learning communities, saying it has provided students with more connections to peers from other grade levels, and to an assistant principal and guidance counselor who are available to a student for all four years of high school.

For half an hour every Wednesday, the full scope of Memorial's system is apparent as the backyard sessions are held in 80 spots around the school. Last Wednesday, laughter and clapping erupted from many backyards as students and faculty played brief games of charades — a contrast to Monday's special sessions exploring students' feelings and questions about the fight and racial tensions.

Memorial's student government was expanded from 16 to 160 students — two elected from each backyard — meaning one out of 12 students serves in student government. And this year, in a plan approved by students, the school's faculty and staff named 12 students to Student Voice, a group similar to a traditional student council, to meet regularly with administrators on school issues.

Supporters of Memorial's small learning communities acknowledge the system failed to prevent the Oct. 16 hallway fight involving a group of black students and a group of Latino students.

But many students and staff members say the neighborhoods and backyards helped hasten the school's recovery and encouraged about 20 students to come forward with tips related to the fight or potential threats. No place on campus, school leaders say, is large enough to accommodate all students, and more intimate settings invite deeper discussion of issues.

Some students complained that after the fight, school officials failed to provide enough details about what happened, making it difficult to hold discussions during the special set of backyard meetings on Monday.

"Most of the students feel strongly that racism and isolation are at the root of the violence, but at this time we do not have the information we need to decide concretely or come up with an effective solution," junior Rebekah Rodriquez wrote to administrators in a letter she provided to the Wisconsin State Journal. Rebekah said some students believe the school leaders are more worried about upholding the school's image than examining whether the school has a serious racism problem.

"They don't tell us anything," senior Abby Olson said. "That's what's really annoying. We're in lockdown in our classrooms (Oct. 17) but they weren't telling us what's going on."

However, other students said the system worked well.

"After hearing all these rumors, we got to voice our opinions," said senior Rebeca Covarrubias, who also liked the way teachers led discussions soliciting students' ideas for how tensions could have been defused to avoid the fight.

"I think the meetings definitely helped in. . .getting us back to the educational environment that is Memorial 99 percent of the time," senior Andrew Muir said.

"I think it cleared the problem up for a lot of people," said senior Aya Yassin, who like many students interviewed for this story lamented the widespread impression across the community that Memorial is a dangerous place. Although the public saw pictures and video of extra police blanketing the campus, these students insisted they feel safe, and that students, with a blend of white, black, Latino, Asian and American Indian heritages, generally get along well.

Jay Affeldt, who as a science teacher helped write Memorial's original grant proposal and now coordinates the learning communities grant, said students' views about conditions at the school are being analyzed and administrators are trying to provide as much reliable information as possible without passing along unsubstantiated rumors.

"Small learning communities did offer us an opportunity to respond to this," he said.