Harlem High succeeds despite size

Call it the little school that could.

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When Grovetown High opened at the beginning of this year, its students came from several other schools.

But while the new school merely reduced overcrowding at Greenbrier and Evans high schools, it depleted the student body of Harlem High School.

Dropping from some 1,300 students to nearly half that size, Harlem has struggled this year to adapt to the plummeting population. It's doing fine academically, where achievement is measured one student at a time. In group activities, though, it's been a challenging year.

The school's athletic teams have sometimes struggled to have enough bodies to play. The marching band switched from playing marches to tunes for jazz ensembles. The drama team found itself thespian-thinned.

But the students and staff soldiered on: The highly regarded drama team continues its reign at the top of state programs, and on Wednesday the Harlem baseball team finished an astonishing hot streak: Beating every other county team, winning second seed in next week's region tourney and giving coach Jimmie Lewis his 600th win.

That's the kind of plucky achievement even the county's biggest schools can admire. Call Harlem the little school that can.