Separating Boys From Girls: SHS Adds More Single-Gender Classes
Study buddies: Freshmen Kevin Spratt (foreground) and Matthew Elvin (in the Southfield shirt) complete an assignment in Jamie Glinz’s Civics class. Next year freshmen and sophomores will be enrolled in single-gender classes, according to school administrators.
Starting next year, both the ninth and tenth graders will be placed in single-gender classes, said School Principal Michael Horn.
Ninth graders were already separated by gender this year in their math, science, English and social studies classes.
The separation was so successful for improving grades and behavior that Horn has decided to continue the separation for freshmen and expand it to include the sophomores as well, he said.
But freshman Erick Eldridge said he was looking forward to being in co-ed classes next year. “My grades are magnificent; I am going to work regardless.”
Symone Morris, another freshman, said, “I don’t care about mixed-gender classes; I get my work done in a mixed-gender or a same-gender class the same way.” Morris said, “It doesn’t bother me at all.”
Nesha Harper, the freshman counselor, said separating the boys from the girls has big advantages. “For some boys and girls, it relieves pressure off of gender attraction and social stress.” It also leads to better grades, she said. “Looking at the grades, there are more freshmen on honor roll, less students are written up for physical altercations than before and behavior has improved all around.”
Counselor Thomas Holliday backed up Harper’s claims with statistics about the freshmen. “This year all year round freshmen have maintained the second highest grades in the school, under the seniors.”
Twenty more freshmen are on the honor roll this year than last year, according to Assistant Principal Vernon Burden. First card-marking there were 100 freshmen this year on honor roll, second card-marking there were 85, third card-marking 65, and fourth card-marking 84. The freshmen this year are consistently staying on honor roll, whereas last year it was an average of 60 on the honor roll each card-marking, Burden said.
There have been two physical altercations this school year involving freshmen, which is a “dramatic decrease” from last year, Burden said. He had no number of how many fights occurred last year involving freshmen.
The tardies – the biggest referral complaint for freshmen – is “significantly down” because the freshmen are grouped this year in A House, rather than having their classes throughout the school.
Freshman social studies teacher Jamie Glinz supports the expansion of single-gender classes. “I think single-gender is positive,” Glinz said. “The numbers of students on honor roll for ninth graders has gone up. My classes are all well-behaved, and they show improvement from the past freshmen I’ve taught.”
So next year the ninth and tenth grade classes will be single-gender because of the improvement this year with the freshman class. Elective courses such as gym and art will still be co-ed, Harper said.
Delenthia Grandison • Jul 25, 2014 at 4:31 pm
I was in the freshman class that was separated into single gender classes. There are a couple of reasons why I don’t like the separation, and none of them have to do with me “just wanting to be around boys” or “I just need boys.”
One of the reasons why I don’t like the single gender classes is because you can’t switch classes if you needed to. For example, I had a geometry class that I barely paid attention in because the teacher taught too slow and the class was boring. I still got an A on every quiz and test, and kept an A the whole time. I didn’t like the fact that I had no challenge, so I decided I should switch the class, this way I could have a better teacher. But I couldn’t because the only class available was an all-boy class. So for the rest of the year I continued not paying attention and still received an A on the test and quizzes, and an A the whole year.
Also all year Mr. Horn repeatedly told us that we are not in “kiddy school anymore.” So what I don’t understand is why they treat us like we are. The middle and elementary schools aren’t even separated like this, and as freshmen most of us are 14 or 15 years old. We are capable of passing or failing on our OWN, and putting the freshmen in a position where they’re most likely to pass than fail is unrealistic, and won’t help them in the long run. Constantly helping them out will make them rely on the people around them, and in the real world nobody does that. So let the freshmen experience this life lesson for themselves now instead of in their college years.
Plus, I believe the change in the classes doesn’t even work because there are still behavior problems, and a lot of people still didn’t do their work. So to me, putting people in the same class as someone who looks like them doesn’t change much. People will still either do the work or they won’t.
Lastly the Southfield administrators have gone about this the wrong way. The school compares the class of 2012-13’s freshmen to the class of 2013-14’s freshmen, which I think is not the right way to see if the single gender classes actually have an effect on the behavior and grades of the students. It’s like doing a science experiment using two different plants. The data gained from the freshmen of 2013-14 being separated is not correct because the two groups are different. Yes, grades and behavior may have improved, but the administrators are comparing this information to a group of 2012-13’s freshmen who were not put in the same situation. The freshmen of 2013-14 may have already been academically better than the freshmen before them. So there is no way of telling if the freshmen who were separated would have been as bad as the freshmen of 2012-13. So if the board is still wanting to see if this experiment is actually having an effect on the students, they should make single gender classes only go on for half of the school year. First semester should be coed classes and second semester should be single gender classes. This way everyone can find out if this change in the classes actually makes a difference. They will be able to compare the freshmen to themselves and will truly see if anything about this experiment really works.
-A student from Class of 2017
Savannah Hayes • May 17, 2014 at 10:05 am
I don’t have a problem with gender based classes because I have seen the major improvement that the freshmen have with their grades…