Gaining confidence in a girl-focused charter school
Middle school. Looking back on those early adolescent days, the memories can often be cringe-worthy — and also very painful for young students. But what if it didn’t have to be this way? What if middle school could be enjoyable, even fun? Laura Jeffrey Academy may have one solution. This St. Paul middle school aims to address girls’ individual academic and social needs in Minnesota’s first girl-focused charter school.
Laura Jeffrey Academy began in the mind of founder and executive director Cindy Reuther when she worked with coed student groups in the late 1980s. “I started noticing that in many of the exercises girls hung back more than the boys,” she says. Reuther also became concerned when research showed girls were losing interest in math, science, technology, and physical activity around ages 9 to 11.
Reuther realized a girl-focused school could work to combat this dip in girls’ academic interests and self-confidence. “If we were really going to help make changes and get girls going in the direction of high self-confidence and competence, we would need to have them all day long,” she says.
Masses of lasses
While girl-focused education isn’t a new concept, more often than not single-sex schools are private institutions, and Reuther hopes to open up access to all girls with the creation of Laura Jeffrey. The school itself is named after a woman who broke educational barriers in Minnesota. Laura Jeffrey (1915–2003) was the only African-American in her graduating class at Macalester College and was one of St. Paul’s first African-American librarians.
Opened in 2008, Laura Jeffrey Academy serves girls in 5th through 8th grade in a unique year-round, girl-focused setting. “We don’t do anything different in terms of teaching because they’re all girls,” Reuther says. “But it’s when you put all girls together — it’s that critical mass of girls that creates a different kind of learning environment.”
One important aspect of Laura Jeffrey is its focus on creating learning connections. Core subjects like math and science and language arts and social studies are taught together by two teachers. Science teacher Colleen Atakpu-Abraham says that team-teaching allows students to get more individual attention with a small 14:1 student-teacher ratio. It also gives her someone else to reflect with on the class at the end of the day.
Interdisciplinary, team-taught courses also allow students to gain critical thinking skills and ask questions. “We focus more on discovery learning in the classroom, helping girls figure out the answer for themselves rather than just giving them the answer and having them repeat a process over and over,” Atakpu-Abraham says.
Naomi Karstad, whose daughter is enrolled in 7th grade at Laura Jeffrey, strongly supports the classroom’s discussion model. “I really think my daughter is learning to speak up for herself,” she says. “I’ve just seen the leaps and bounds in her ability to reason and think through things.” She also feels that her daughter has gained the ability to interact maturely with adults. “If you ask her a question, she will actually give you a response, instead of like many preteens who go ‘I don’t know.’”
The whole child
While Laura Jeffrey has a strong focus in science, technology, engineering, and math, it also encourages students in the liberal arts, including art, music, health, and physical education. “We think it’s really important to teach the whole child,” Reuther says. “Liberal arts are very important to the growth and development of the student.”
But does separating girls from the boys for these early adolescent years really make a difference?
Reuther cites the example of class trips to Audubon Center of the North Woods. When asked if Laura Jeffrey groups behave differently than coed groups, the Audubon staff pointed out a definite difference. In a typical coed bog walk at the center, they said girls were hesitant and squeamish on the edge, reluctant to get dirty, while the boys rowdily played in the bog.
On Laura Jeffrey trips, however, “One hundred percent of the girls are in the bog, totally engaged with nature and science,” Reuther says. “There’s something about the expectation that somehow girls shouldn’t be interested in gooey muck when they’re around boys and that gets translated. So taking that factor out allows them — really in some ways forces them — to take on other roles, to really experience and be engaged in the activity.”
Atakpu-Abraham agrees that many of her students enjoy the lack of boys and are able to feel more confident in the classroom. “They feel more open to participating, and they don’t feel intimidated,” she says.
Bad behavior banished
Dean of Students Melissa Stangl has also seen remarkable behavioral changes in girls who have been problem students at other schools. She gives the example of three girls who enrolled in 2009. Each had been suspended numerous times at their previous schools and repeatedly skipped classes. However, Stangl saw major improvements in the girls’ behavior and academics over the course of a year at Laura Jeffrey. One girl has even gone on to become one of Stangl’s best peer mediators.
“I’m proud to say that one girl was only suspended once and the other two weren’t suspended at all,” Stangl says. “They had these big chips on their shoulders, but once they realized we were all on the same page and we supported them, they came to me or their teachers when they felt frustrated, instead of acting out. They knew that their teachers were there for them and wanted them to succeed.”
As a parent, Karstad feels that Laura Jeffrey deals with conflict successfully. “My daughter had issues of bullying at her other school, and those things have been talked about and dealt with in a very upfront and constructive manner at Laura Jeffrey, instead of brushing it under the carpet,” she says. “They have a peer counseling network, and the girls work together to come up with solutions to problems.”
A supportive community
However, single-sex public education isn’t without its opponents. Since No Child Left Behind allowed public schools to separate students by gender in classrooms or schools in 2001, it has been a hotly debated issue. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed numerous lawsuits against schools and districts, citing Title IX and claiming that students are receiving unequal educational opportunities by this gender separation. They also feel separating students is often based on inaccurate data stating that boys’ and girls’ brains develop differently.
Reuther agrees that research on differing brain development is flawed. Rather, she chose to have Laura Jeffrey’s framework “based in philosophies of social construction and environmental factors that sometimes prevent girls from fully actualizing their potential.”
When Laura Jeffrey was in its planning stages, the founders considered many arguments opposing single-sex public education, but Reuther says, “There are great arguments for having coed schools if we were a society that was gender-equal. If we were there, I would agree: we wouldn’t need single-sex education. But we’re not there. To me, to give girls this kind of opportunity so they can really excel … is still an important mission in our society.”
She says Laura Jeffrey hasn’t really received any opposition for its single-sex philosophy. Rather, the Minnesota women’s community has been incredibly supportive. The school has received grants from the Minnesota Women’s Foundation, and Reuther received the Ann Bancroft Foundation’s Dream Maker Award this past June for supporting the achievements of girls and women.
Entering its third year of operations, Laura Jeffrey Academy adds its final grade, 8th grade, in the 2010–2011 school year, bringing enrollment to a full 220 students.
Reuther couldn’t be happier for the school’s success. “You set this plan and dream out, and you’ve got these benchmarks along the way, and it’s been pretty amazing that we’ve been able to meet our benchmarks in this economic climate,” she says. “We started LJA in the recession, but we’re still moving forward with all of the significant parts of our curriculum.”
The 2010–2011 school year also will mark the first graduating class from Laura Jeffrey as 8th graders move onto high school in the spring. Most girls will likely enroll in coeducational high schools, and the staff has begun working with 8th-grade families to find a high school that is the best fit for each graduate.
As her daughter gets closer to high school, Karstad wishes a Laura Jeffrey high school existed. “I really hope that what’s she’s learned here will be enough to keep her going in that questioning mode into high school and college,” she says. She is prepared for an ongoing search for the right high school for her daughter. “I don’t think a big public school is going to work for her with the way that she asks questions and approaches problem-solving,” she says. “She’s going to want more from classroom interaction than having a teacher throw information at her. That will not satisfy her.”
Stangl hopes that Laura Jeffrey’s philosophy will carry students through high school and college with confidence. She hopes they realize, “No matter what skills I have inside of me, and I know that I can achieve whatever I want to achieve.”
