4 months ago
"Its helped me learn more because my grades have really improved because boys are kind of distracting and they like to play a lot," Wilkinson County Middle School 7th grader Crystal Thomas said Friday, while gearing up to take her science test.
Thomas is one of 337 students at the school who attends core classes - math, science, language arts and social studies - with members of the same sex, only. The school implemented its gender-based classrooms at the start of the 2008 school year. Thomas says she was skeptical when she first heard of the plan.
"To be honest, I didn't think I was going to like it at all," she said.
Now, sitting in Ms. Todd's 7th grade life science class, she says she hopes the school sticks with its single gender classrooms.
"I think I would rather be in a single gender classroom," Thomas said.
Across the hall, in Ms. Lamar's 7th grade boys math class, student Brandon Blocker agrees. He says the separation helps him learn.
"Because the girls ain't distracting the boys," Blocker said.
Teachers and staff at the school say gender-based classrooms has made a difference, citing different learning styles and less distractions as reasons why.
"To separate them in the academic class sort of eliminates that social pressure between the genders at that early age," teacher Dr. Bobby Wells said.
"I see that they have become a lot more comfortable voicing their opinions, speaking out in class," teacher Daphne Todd added.
Todd says single sex classrooms lets her use different teaching styles for female and male students.
"So now we are really working on their strengths," Todd said.
The school says they are tracking test scores, and are seeing some improvement. Principal Ginger Jackson says this year's test results show more students meet or exceed state standards in most subjects. While she admits that it's too soon to know whether the improvement can be attributed to the gender-based classrooms, she says the effect thus far has been positive.
"Single gender classrooms has been a really good thing for us," Jackson said.
Jackson says the school is committed to at least three to five years, and will keep tracking data to see how the plan is impacting students and scores.
