“This has been a positive experience,” says Beth Fletcher, who teaches a seventh-grade English class for girls. “The girls are more confident in group discussions, and they are more comfortable getting up in front of the class.” Like Orama, Fletcher has also been able to use books and creative activities geared towards girls.

Joe Hemstock, who teaches history and science to seventh-grade boys at Jefferson Middle School, says there’s one other huge benefit of the gender classes. “With only one gender in the classroom, there’s no flirting.

You don’t have students putting on makeup, brushing and combing their hair, cleaning their shoes, etc. With the gender classes, much of the nonsense between boys and girls ceases to exist, enabling students to focus on their schoolwork.”

Jefferson teachers and administrators are not the only ones praising the gender classes. Paula McKay credits the program for her son Michael’s current academic success.

“Michael really struggled with his grades in elementary school,” stated McKay, who heard about the program from Michael’s sixth-grade teacher. “Once Michael was placed in the gender classes, we began seeing a big difference in grades. Now he is on the honor roll, and he’s more enthusiastic about school. And Michael, an eighth-grade student who was also in gender classes last school year, agrees. “I work much better when I’m in classes with just boys. There are no girls to look at or distract me. Now I’m able to focus on my assignments and my grades have gotten a lot better.”

It was almost by accident that Jefferson administrators stumbled into the idea of single-gender classrooms while attending a conference on various disciplinary programs.

Now, in the second year of a twoyear pilot program, Jefferson joins the ranks of more than 540 public schools across the country offering classrooms for single genders, with most operating similar to Jefferson, where lunches and a few electives are coed. Only a handful of schools in Illinois have single-gender classrooms, including eleven in the Chicago area and each of the three middle schools, as well as one high school, in East St. Louis.

Overall the concept of single-gender classrooms has met with mixed reviews. Some educators across the country tout the benefits of the classes, insisting that a vast majority of the students in the classes are more motivated and focused, have greater academic success, have more self confidence, and are more involved in classroom activities. Many have also shown improvements in subjects that a particular gender tends to avoid. For example, girls tend to shy away from courses such as math, computer science and physics, while boys steer clear of subjects such as art and music. As a result, supporters believe that the gender classes expand educational opportunities, with students considering fields that they may have otherwise thought were off limits.

Others are not so convinced, arguing that there have not been enough studies done to definitively conclude that gender classes lead to greater academic success. Opponents also believe that single-gender classes are a form of segregation and that they hinder students in learning to socialize with those of the opposite gender. They add that the classes reinforce gender roles and threaten some of the advances females have made under Title X, a federal law prohibiting discrimination in schools based on gender. They also argue that not all girls are afraid to ask questions in coed courses, such as math and science, and not all boys are reluctant to participate in courses such as art and music. In addition, opponents believe that by separating the genders, schools fail to teach boys and girls to work together.

Nelson admits that gender classes may not be for everyone. “Students enrolled in gender classes can opt out if their parents believe that the program is not working for their children,” said Nelson. Since gender classes began, only one student has returned to coed classrooms. Despite the naysayers, Nelson stands by the gender classes, emphasizing that Jefferson has had nothing but positive results. Nelson has high hopes for gender classes at Jefferson. “I would love to eventually have all of our classes single gendered,” she said, adding that she hopes that the school will eventually been known as “the single-gender school.”