03:53 PM EST on Friday, November 12, 2004

It's almost like a school dance. Girls on one side, boys on the other.

“What we are seeing is that male achievement has increased but also the female achievement has increased,” says Pam Cooper of Clarksville Middle School. “We have much fewer discipline problems in the classroom.”

This the third year for single gender classes at Clarksville Middle School in Clarksville, Indiana.

So far so good, according to the principal and students.

“In sixth grade, we worried about what the boys are doing and the boys worried about what we were doing,” says eighth grader Haley Ruis. “Now we just worry about our work.”

The first year the school split up the students, 46 percent of sixth grade boys passed all their classes and 45 percent of the girls did. Now in their eighth grade year, 68 percent of the boys are passing all of their classes and 78 percent of the girls are.

“Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s not, but most of the time it keeps the boys focused,” says eighth grader Demetrius Latham.

Southern Middle School in Louisville also has same sex classes.

“When we looked at our CATS scores, they went up five points. When we looked at out writing scores, they went up to six points,” says Dr. Anita Jones, Southern’s principal. “This is probably the greatest gain we've seen.”

In their fourth year of divided classes, this school has also seen their suspensions drop by about 80 percent.

“This has given us the opportunity to provide that leadership for students who may not have risen to the top if you will under other circumstances,” Dr. Jones says.

Both schools say they want to increase their scores but say this is a start.

Clarksville Middle School also saw gains on their state standardized tests. Southern Middle School modeled their single gender plan after a school in San Diego with some of the similar challenges they face. Within six years, that school became one of the city’s top performing schools. Southern is four years into the program.

Web story produced by Jay Ditzer.