What It’s Like To Run An All-Girls School
Earlier this week we told you about why some students prefer single-gender classes, and a bill which would create a pilot program for single-gender elementary schools.
We asked Karen French the principal of all-girls Ferrell Preparatory Academy, a public middle school in Tampa, about the differences in single-gender and traditional schools.
Q: I assume youâve taught at both co-ed schools and now a single-gender school? Is that right?
A: That is correct.
Q: Tell me a little bit about what the differences are?
A: The main difference â and this is, like, year 21 for me and this is the third with doing single-gender. Iâve taught all within middle. The main difference that I see is the area of focus that the students haveâŠhow much more focused they are in class, how much more theyâre willing to volunteer, how much more risk-taking that they will take within that.
Part of that is the environment of what we are setting here, but being that itâs a single-gender environment that helps to support that preparatory environment that weâre building.
Q: Is that a developmental thing or is that a cultural thing, do you think, that girls are willing to take a backseat in co-ed classes?
A: I think itâs a combination of both.
One of whatâs going on dynamics-wise with the age of a middle schooler; their whole brain development. But also â and I donât mean in any way to stereotype girls â but normally the more outgoing, louder child in the classroom is going to initially get the first attention. And a lot of times that can be boys. Thatâs not always the case. Trust me, I have a lot of outgoing boisterous girls here, too. You have all types of girls here.
So a lot of times we can see girls as being more compliant, or more passive. And, sometimes, that gets overlooked.
The way that we structure the learning is that everyone is required to take a part of whatever the learning is going on in the classroom. Whether itâs a group activity. Whether weâre building in that accountability when that group activity is going on that everyone has a part. You canât just take a backseat.
One of the couple of things that we do differently here is it is very common that the girlsâ seats are changed continually.
You have to know that you never know who youâre going to have to work with. Girls are also very territorial. Itâs like concrete, breaking that up. The territory is there. âThis is my seat, this section.â They get extremely territorial about things like that. So we constantly put that challenge to them: you donât know who youâre going to have to work with. You have to get along and work with everyone within that environment.
Q: The ACLU has criticized single-gender education. Theyâve launched a nationwide campaign against it because they argue it reinforces gender stereotypes. Is that something youâre concerned about? Do you do anything to try and deal with that?
A: No, Iâm not concerned about that.
Thatâs one of the things we focus on, that weâre not creating stereotypes. You can have all different types of students that come here.
Itâs not that weâre offering Barbie playhouse and dolls and every single classroom is pink and we only do culinary arts here. Absolutely not. We offer whatever children would be interested in, whether it is culinaryâŠweâve had flag football as an enrichment activity. Those types of things. We try to offer any experience. We offer here what any traditional setting would have.
As far as stereotyping, I think we probably stereotype less than what you would see in a traditional setting.
Q: What have you learned in your three years that you would provide as advice to any school district or principal thinking about doing this?
A: The main advice is if youâre building thisâŠis you stay true to the child.
Building a good, effective middle school â whether itâs single-gender or not is about that relationship you build with the student. Thatâs crucial in single-gender as well. But you have to build that culture where students are respected, that theyâre heard; that parents are respected, that theyâre heard; that staff members are respected, that theyâre heard.
And if youâre doing that youâre going to build a successful school environment for either. So thatâs the premise of what I base everything on.