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For the second year Lansing's Raymond C. Buckley Elementary School has been teaching single-gender classes in some of its grades.  While most classes in the school are coeducational, there are three single-gender classes this year.  Principal Chris Petograsso says that splitting boys and girls into separate classrooms allows teachers to tailor the classroom to the ways each gender learns, and has helped even out boy-heavy coeducational classrooms.

"Last year we thought we would do this for the year," Petograsso says.  "We had such success with it we decided to go further.  We let families decide whether they wanted this to continue.  It was clear that families wanted it to continue, so we found ways to make it happen and also continue to have some great coed classes."

Originally the impetus for the classes was to even out the gender ratio.  There were five boys to every three girls.  Typical classes were numbering a dozen boys with four to six girls.  Today classes through second grade are all co-educational.  In third grade Pamela Bryce teaches an all-boy class of 18 students.  An all-girl class is also taught by Rhody O'Donnell at that level, and another all-boy class is taught by Lisa Kledzik in fourth grade this year.  Third and fourth grades each have three coed sections.

Elementary teachers have incorporated findings on how boys' and girls' brains develop, as well as catering to their gender-based interests.

"Boys are physically and developmentally not necessarily built for school," says Bryce, who teaches an all-male third grade class.  "They are not built to sit down, get to work, work quietly, and work on their own.  One of my main missions is to make school a place where boys want to be.  To make their physical environment comfortable, build a community in the classroom and build a relationship with me so that they feel comfortable in taking the kind of risks they need to take to read and to write and approach areas like reading and writing that they think are more girly." 

Pettagrasso says Lansing's data matches national trends, with boys scoring higher in math and girls excelling in English Language Arts (ELA).  Of 171 students in third and fourth grades, 91 are male.  Males and females met the ELA and math standards in equal numbers.  36 males scored a level four grade on math, while only 24 females made that grade.  But the tables turned in ELA, where 20 females scored a 4 and only 6 males tested at that level.

Research shows that there is a 3 to 1 ration of boys to girls in groups of struggling readers.  Boys end up in special education at a 4:1 ratio.  Pettagrasso says that in addition to test scores, technology clubs are filled with a majority of boys, matching stereotypes and state statistics.  In the Technology/Art Club, which deals with computer animation, 13 boys have joined, and only three girls.  Over the last three years 92% of the Technology Club members have been boys.

While single-gender classes have the same curriculum as co-ed classes, the tone is very different in the two classrooms.  Part of the success is to focus reading and writing on topics that specifically interest boys or girls.  Bryce says that incorporating movement, encouraging competition, including hands-on activities and social interaction are uniquely suited to boys.  She says giving boys more time to think helps them succeed, because they need more processing time than girls.

"Boys are strong in the visual/spacial area of their brain," she says.  "They are not so strong in the verbal part.  All these ways that you can activate the verbal area help to increase their learning."

Bryce says that things boys like are not generally accepted topics in the classroom.  She says they come to school thinking that their likes and values are not welcome.  She has incorporated those topics in her class, allowing boys to write about them and include them in class discussions.  Bryce says this has worked to increase their enjoyment of reading and writing, and to increase the amount of reading and writing they do.

The classes spend some time together in the morning, and they have art and encore, lunch, and recess in mixed groups.  Petograsso says kids enjoy being in the single-gender classrooms, and that they form a sense of community there.

One boy says, "I get an opportunity to have fun with other boys and there are no girls around to talk about ponies and stuff."  Another says, "You get to draw monsters, blood, gross things, and read good books."

Girls say they enjoy being together, and several say they appreciate the cleanliness of the bathroom in the all-girls class.

This year Petograsso and Bryce presented a session on single gender classes at the National Conference of the National Association of Single Sex Public Education.

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