Separate but Equal : Innovative School Trying Boy-Only, Girl-Only Shifts

FOUNTAIN VALLEY — The girls and boys who go to public school in an office park here sit at the same desks, type at the same computers and learn from the same teachers. They split everything evenly down to the last No. 2 pencil.

The only thing the two groups don’t share in Southern California’s first state-funded, single-sex schools is class time together.

That’s fine with them.

“You get more concentration on your work,” said Manuel Ponce, 16, of Santa Ana. “When there’s girls, they flirt and stuff like that.”

Said Nancy Granadino, another 16-year-old from Santa Ana: “When you’re with boys, sometimes you’re embarrassed about what you might say. They goof around too much. They’re too loud.”

Last week, the Single Gender Academies (their no-nonsense name) quietly opened here in a two-story office building with funding from a $500,000 state grant.

Run by the Orange County Department of Education, it is the fourth campus of its kind in the state. The others opened earlier this year in Stockton, San Francisco and Siskiyou County.

While single-gender private schools are widespread, the idea is considered unprecedented for California’s public school system. To guard against charges of discrimination, the program is voluntary.

How much single-gender settings actually help students is open to question. Some research suggests that girls benefit in subjects such as math and science when isolated from boys. But the benefits for boys are unclear.

The public may debate whether it’s equitable, effective or even constitutional for the state to create separate schools for girls and boys. Civil rights groups are monitoring the California project closely.

But the Academies’ principal, faculty and students from grade seven to 12, all of whom volunteered for the project, seem convinced the idea will work.

Susan M. Condrey, the principal, predicted that her students will have greater freedom “to risk and grow” if they “aren’t busy trying to show off or impress the other gender or worry about dating rituals.”

By the end of the school year, Condrey said, “we’re going to have our girls building rockets and robots, and we’re going to have our boys writing poetry.”

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The school was a work in progress at the end of its first week. Just-opened boxes of software, textbooks, crayons and pencils were piled on the floor. White boards leaned against walls, waiting to be hung. Plate-glass doors were being installed even as students worked at computer terminals and teachers coached them over their shoulders.

The enrollment of 60 students, 30 boys and 30 girls, is expected to grow to 160 within a few months. The faculty, likewise, will grow from six teachers to eight.

Students are drawn from the county’s alternative and correctional education system. Many have spent time in juvenile detention centers, fallen behind in mainstream schools or encountered personal troubles at home. Without help, most are in jeopardy of not graduating.

The schools attempt to strike a balance between tolerance and discipline. One male student was suspended on the first day for writing gang graffiti on a piece of paper. That has been the only rules violation so far.

Students are required to sign a letter stipulating to such statements as, “I am capable of learning, developing and participating in school and in my life.”

Most students interviewed said they were drawn to the school not for the single-gender experiment but for its technology.

Students use Pentium-generation computers with color monitors and will soon have a high-speed data connection to the Internet. Plans call for students to use video cameras to create reports. A satellite dish has been installed for video conferencing. The curriculum, of course, also will cover traditional subjects of math, language, social studies and science.

But many public schools in Southern California boast new computers and a creative curriculum.

The Academies campus stands apart for one reason immediately apparent to anyone who walks in. Boys and girls attend school in separate four-hour shifts, alternating between a morning schedule of 8 a.m. to noon and an afternoon schedule of 1 to 5 p.m.

On Friday, boys had the morning to work in the computer lab. David Frye, 17, of Anaheim, echoed several of his peers when he said the absence of girls was “nothing real major.” At other schools, Frye said, “I had friends who were girls, and they weren’t really a distraction to me.”

The difference for Yahya Alwakza, 15, of Westminster: “You just don’t hear that many squeaky voices, that’s all.”

A few hours later, girls had their say about boys.

“They flirt too much,” said Angelica Manriquez, 15, of Santa Ana. “They try to talk to me and get my number.”

Countered Stephanie Sandoval, 15, of Santa Ana: “Anybody could bother you. It doesn’t have to be a boy. It could be a girl.”

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Teachers said they strive to treat the two group identically.

“Whatever the boys get, the girls get. Period,” said Pete Herman, 31. “They get exactly the same thing, word for word, lesson to lesson.”

Herman greets students of both sexes with a firm handshake of the sort they’ll need in the business world. He leaves them both with a more casual grip and knuckle rap that he picked up from the streets.

The teachers praised the students for choosing to participate in an educational experiment.

“They’re very brave to have made the decision to come to this school,” said Patrick Wnek, 30. “It’s different maybe from what they’re used to. It’s different from the norm. It sure is nice that they’re willing to take a risk and come here to learn.”