Single-Gender Classroom Programs Gaining Popularity in the Area

For the past four years, Woodbridge Middle School has been putting into practice the idea that boys and girls learn in different ways by having single-gender classes, and with more than 60 percent of students in the program, principal Sykes Calhoun said he views it as a success.

While the curriculum taught in each grade is universally the same, the approach to learning is different and is developed by teachers to support the differences between how boys and girls process information.

"In the boys' classrooms, there are stand-up desks with stools so the boys can move around. Physical activity such as answering questions by catching a ball instead of raising a hand is also incorporated," said Calhoun.

In the girls' classrooms, Calhoun said there is a much warmer classroom environment. Voices are lower, cooperative discussion takes place, and work is completed often in groups or partner pairings, because girls tend to be more social than boys.

These gender-specific approaches to learning can also be incorporated in co-ed classes, said Calhoun, but they do not always work. "For example, say an English class is covering Jane Eyre. Girls may discuss the feelings involved in the novel but the boys will focus on the gory details in another chapter," said Calhoun.

Other social events, such as lunch, school dances and extracurricular classes, remain co-ed, as social interaction with the opposite sex is still key to pre-teens.

This is the first year that students who have been involved in the program for all of middle school will enter high school. "They leave us with confidence and we feel that they will do a phenomenal job in high school," said Calhoun.

Nearly 60 percent of the student population at Woodbridge Middle, which met the county annual yearly progress standard this year, is in a same-gender program.

The middle school adopted the program after the Prince William County Schools Superintendent Stephen Walts encouraged Calhoun to take a look at some specialty programs for the middle school.

The program is based on the book "Why Gender Matters," by Dr. Leonard Sax, executive director of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education. Sax has been an integral part of bringing the single-gender program to Woodbridge Middle, and his philosophy has shaped the program and its implementation.

"The key to this program's success is in the professional development," said Calhoun. "If other people try to do this without the proper training, and just putting boys and girls in separate classes will be a disaster."

In the sixth and seventh grades there are four single-gender teams with a total of 180 students. Three teams are each the size of a traditional class, and one team is smaller. In the eighth grade, there are three teams with 130 students enrolled in the same-gender program.

Woodbridge Middle is one of 11 middle schools in Virginia and the only in Northern Virginia that participates in single-gender classroom programs, according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education.  

Sax led training sessions for teachers at the beginning of the Woodbridge Middle School program. At last year's NASSPE conference, Calhoun delivered a presentation on the success of the program at Woodbridge Middle.

Fred Lynn Middle School, just down the road from Woodbridge Middle School, is starting a similar program this year. A pilot program is in place for the school, in which there will be two gender-specific classes of 25 students for each grade level.

Like the Woodbridge Middle program, this class is an optional program with a first-come, first-serve enrollment. In a letter to parents, Fred Lynn principal J. Harrison Coleman said single-gender classes in the middle years can help boys and girls boost their confidence in the core curriculum.