Bayou Blue to experiment with same-gender classrooms

Sixth-grade boys and girls at Bayou Blue Middle School will attend separate classrooms beginning next year.

The Lafourche Parish School Board approved the pilot program, which will require parental consent for students to participate, at last week’s meeting.

Bayou Blue Principal Sharon Dugas and literacy coach Raecheal Vizier told board members that same-sex classrooms demonstrate greater academic gains compared to mixed gender classrooms, according to their research.

“We’ve seen some schools grow and some schools grow through the roof,” Dugas said of schools that provide same-sex classes. “We’ve seen nothing but success.”

Mixed gender classrooms generally produce mixed results academically, Dugas said. Females score six points lower on math and up to 21 points lower on science than boys, she said. On the other hand, boys outnumber girls four-to-one in office referrals.

Nicholls State University education professor Dr. Greg Stall has agreed to monitor Bayou Blue’s pilot program.

“We have an outside entity who won’t be biased (to monitor the school’s data),” Vizier explained. Based on the findings, she said the program could be expanded to the seventh grade.

Of the 96 parents questioned about the program, Dugas said 63 responded favorably. Only eight parents refused to allow their children to participate.

“One parent who said ‘no’ said it was only because, ‘My son wouldn’t let me,'” Dugas said. “That’s understandable. The student has to be actively involved and willing to participate.”

She said parents would have the option of returning their child to mixed gender classes if the same-sex classes weren’t proving beneficial.

Superintendent Jo Ann Matthews heralded the unique idea, saying it could be of great benefit to the students. “We are looking for anything and everything that we can do to help our students meet their goals.”

Vizier and Dugas agreed to present the school board with data next year outlining the program’s success.

“We’ll look at attendance, discipline and, when the iLeap scores come in, we’ll look at that,” Vizier said. “After all of that is done, in July of next year we can come back and say this is what we have and we’ll let you decide where to go from there.”