ATLANTA - Greene County school officials are backing off a controversial plan to become the country's first entirely single-sex school district, but county schools may still wind up with some single-gender classes.<br />
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The plan, approved by the school board last month, sparked heated public forums where hundreds of parents blasted Superintendent Shawn McCollough for pushing the measure through without first consulting them. The move would have divided every school by gender, which one expert has called illegal.<br />
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Now that plan has been abandoned, and the school board will officially drop it at its meeting on April 14, board member Velicia Cobb said.<br />
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The district administration is polling the preferences of parents, teachers and staff members at four of the county's public schools, she said. Once those results are in, the district administration will draft a new plan that mirrors the majority opinion, she said.<br />
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That could mean some of the schools will be single gender and some will not, Cobb said.<br />
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"I think is what should have been done first," said Cobb, who voted in favor of the conversion last month despite reservations about it. "Whenever you're trying to implement a plan like that at that magnitude, you need parents' buy-in for it to be successful."<br />
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District spokeswoman Judi Collins said McCollough is not giving interviews on the subject.<br />
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Some parents say McCollough is still not listening to them.<br />
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Paula Hall, whose son is in kindergarten at Greensboro elementary, said many parents are in favor of converting one middle school classroom to single gender as a test to see if it works. But McCollough has told parents he still wants to have some single-gender education at the elementary schools, Hall said.<br />
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"He's still wanting to make changes even though we're still saying there shouldn't be those dramatic changes right now," she said.<br />
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The move to single-gender schools stemmed from concerns over years of poor test scores, soaring dropout rates and high numbers of teen pregnancies in the 2,000-student district. McCollough told parents at a public forum last month that everything else he's tried has not turned those numbers around.<br />
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"We've made very positive incremental steps in the last two years. Our kids need help faster than what we're doing, and that's why we're moving to a faster, more innovative program," he said.<br />
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But Leonard Sax, head of the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, said McCollough's plan is illegal and "embarrassing." Federal law allows single-sex classrooms or schools, but parents must also have the option of publicly funded coeducation for their children, Sax said.<br />
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U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman Samara Yudof said federal officials were working with Greene County school administrators to make sure the district's plans comply with federal law.<br />
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The district has two elementary schools, a middle school, a high school and a charter school. The charter school, Lake Oconee Academy, will remain coed because it is governed by a committee of parents and community leaders instead of the school board.<br />
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Districts across the U.S. have been switching to single-sex education since federal officials issued rules to ease the process in 2006. Nationally, at least 366 public schools are either entirely single-sex or have single-sex classrooms, Sax said.<br />
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On the Net:<br />
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Greene County Board of Education: http://http://www.greene.k12.ga.us/system/index.htm <br />
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National Association for Single Sex Education: http://www.singlesexschools.org/ <br />
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