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One class for boys, another for girls

Westside Elementary School plans to offer single-sex classrooms at every grade level this fall.

By TOM MARSHALL
Published June 16, 2006

BROOKSVILLE - Westside Elementary School plans to try out single-sex classrooms this fall, in what could be the Tampa Bay area's first trial of the practice.

But some members of the Hernando County School Board said Thursday they hadn't heard of the proposal, and planned to raise objections to the manner in which the pilot program is being carried out.

"My personal opinion is the board must make this decision," member Pat Fagan said. "I think it's something we need to talk about before those letters go out to the public."

Westside principal Charles Johnson said he was planning to randomly select children to fill two single-sex classes at each grade level in the 885-student school, and notify parents in early July of those assignments.

"The way I intend to do that is to send a letter out some time in July saying that your child has been selected to participate in a single-gender class, and of course giving them the opportunity to decline if it's something they're not interested in," Johnson said.

Students selected for the classes would be separated by gender for core academic classes but not special activities or lunch.

The school plans to meet with teachers in the program frequently and collect plenty of data before deciding whether to continue the experiment past the first year, he said.

But School Board chairman Jim Malcolm, who has supported the idea of trying out single-sex classes as a way to boost achievement, said he hadn't heard anything about the plan and didn't like the idea of randomly selecting families for participation.

"I don't like saying, 'This is what's happening and you can opt out,' " Malcolm said, adding that he would have preferred that the school survey parents first. And "you can't send those letters out there without board approval," he said.

Board member John Druzbick said he recalled the board reaching a consensus last year to look at the issue, and supported the initiative at Westside.

"To say there was voted approval on it, at this point I would say no," he added. "But I have no problem with them trying this as a pilot program. As far as I'm concerned, they can go ahead and look at it."

Westside wouldn't be the first school in Florida to group students by gender. Volusia, Orange and Broward counties have all tried single-gender classrooms, and Hillsborough County officials seriously considered the idea last year before dropping it.

In 2004, Woodward Elementary School in Deland tried the concept in six classes at the kindergarten, second- and fourth-grade levels, and recorded higher scores on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test among both boys and girls.

"It's been a phenomenal experience," second-grade teacher Mary Catherine Michaels told the St. Petersburg Times last year. "It's changed the way I view boys. They can stay focused on an activity. We just have to hook them in."

Questions about gender equity have been central in the debate over single-sex education.

Educational researcher Leonard Sax, whose book Why Gender Matters is required reading this summer for Westside teachers taking part in that school's program, has been an outspoken proponent of the practice.

His National Association for Single-Sex Education promotes brain research showing that boys and girls learn in fundamentally different ways, and can benefit from teachers who teach to their unique needs.

But both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women have challenged that research as flawed. They point to research by the American Association of University Women showing that when other factors like socioeconomic background, class size and intelligence are factored in, achievement differences between single-sex and traditional classrooms disappear.

The groups argue that girls' educational opportunities are threatened by gender segregation, and that such programs violate both the Constitution and the federal government's landmark Title IX protections against discrimination.

Board chairman Malcolm said worries about girls' educational achievement are outmoded, with test scores showing consistent gains for girls and dropping achievement levels for boys.

"Research will say anything people want it to say," Malcolm added. "Girls have not only caught up, girls have surpassed boys."

But both he and Fagan said they planned to discuss how Westside's single-sex initiative is being implemented at Tuesday's board meeting.

Principal Johnson said he became interested in the issue after noticing that his school's practice of grouping students by ability had resulted in large numbers of boys in lower-achieving classes.

"I don't like that there are more boys in the lower-achieving classes," he said. "If there's anything we can do about it, we want to do something about it.

"Ninety-five percent of teachers at the elementary level across the nation are female," Johnson added. "And of that 95 percent, 99 percent of them have no instruction on how boys and girls learn differently. So we're sending our little boys into a female world when we send them into the elementary school."

Tom Marshall can be reached at tmarshall@sptimes.com or 352 848-1431.

[Last modified June 16, 2006, 07:05:26]