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WJMS offering same-sex classes this school year
Program being tested in sixth grade
It’s a new school year at West Jackson Middle School. And the school is taking a new approach for some students — same-sex classrooms.
The all-boys’, all-girls’ classrooms are part of a pilot program at the Gum Springs Church Road school to draw students’ minds away from social competition and achieve academic success, educators say. It’s the first of its kind for the Jackson County School System.
Sixth grade teachers Sandra Carlyle and Sharon Synan are testing the idea to teach boys and girls separately with two language arts and two reading classes. If all goes well during the experiment, the teaching practice may expand at the school.
“Middle school is such a transitional period in (students’) lives — it’s social, emotional, physical and intellectual growth,” Synan said. “So they really get ‘whamied’ in the sixth grade, and that’s why there is a middle school that separates an elementary school from a high school.”
“Boys and girls are not in the same place in middle school — but they’re both changing,” she added. “By separating them, specifically in reading, we can streamline their interests.”
The notion of single-gender classrooms is a growing trend in the United States, according to the non-profit organization the National Association for Single Sex Public Education.
More than 160 public schools in the nation this school year are offering single-sex classes, according to the association. At least eight schools in Georgia, mostly in Cobb County, are testing all-girl and all-boy classrooms.
Campbell Middle School in Cobb County, for example, is using the single-sex teaching method for most of its classes this school year. For the program, the middle school is partnering with Kennesaw State University, which is conducting research on the single-gender classrooms.
Carlyle and Synan said they are also using research-based data for the pilot program at WJMS.
Since the first day of school more than two weeks ago, students have been writing in their daily journals about the program, Carlyle said. They have also been asked to participate in regular surveys for the classes.
Dr. Russ Chesser, WJMS principal, said he plans to monitor standardized test scores and grades of the experimental classrooms and compare them to co-educational classrooms. The school, however, may not have a better understanding of the program’s effectiveness until spring 2006, when CRCT data becomes available, he added.
“We’ll have to look at our results,” Chesser said.
The single-gender classes are part of the “Viper Team,” one of two teams established among teachers and students for sixth graders at WJMS. About 115 students are participating in the single-sex classes, which have 75-minute instruction periods. WJMS has more than 830 students this school year.
Synan said she hopes the classes will encourage students to focus on academics — and not the opposite sex.
“It’s something about that mix with girls and guys, they get competitive,” she said. “It’s just a different environment.”
Judging by the glitter on some boys’ artwork, perhaps it is a bit different for the teenagers. The boys, Synan explains, are now using glitter in a “cool” way to display their artistic talents — something they may not have expressed in the presence of girls.
Girls are also being more open to math, science and technology education, thanks to the single-sex classrooms, Carlyle said.
“One girl said she could be herself and she didn’t have to worry about what she looked like, and she could ask questions (in the classroom),” Carlyle said.
And what are parents saying about the single-gender classrooms?
“Parents have been very positive,” Carlyle said. “I had one parent say, ‘I wish the whole school would do that.’ I’ve just gotten positive results.”
Parents were given the option to have their child be taught in a co-educational classroom, instead of the single-sex classroom, Carlyle said. One parent initially sought that option but decided to have her child join the single-gender classroom program.
Carlyle also said the pilot program is getting positive support from Dr. Chesser, the board of education and superintendent Andy Byers.
Synan said the pilot classrooms are not divided by students’ academic abilities and still foster diversity.
“We’re still providing diversity in the classroom . . . . Having them divided into a gender seems to be bringing out the positives on every level,” she said.
But there are small changes in the single-sex classrooms.
While boys read, “My Side of the Mountain,” a novel featuring a male hero, girls read “Esperanza Rising,” a novel highlighting a female lead character. In Georgia, middle school students must read at least 25 books a year, Synan said.
By the end of the school year, the educators hope the program will encourage girls to become more self-confident and boys to develop a love of reading.
“Based on the research that was performed, our students are pretty much living up to what we expected them to do,” Synan said. The teachers are following research available from the book, “Failing at Fairness: How Our Schools Cheat Girls,” she added.
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