Ventura’s All-Girl Math Classes Pass Test on Bias : U.S. Civil Rights Authorities Suggest Courses Be Renamed but Find TheyDo Not Discriminate Against Boys

Ventura schools can continue to offer all-girl math classes--they just can’t call them that, federal civil rights investigators told a school district that has won national attention for its sex-segregated classes.

Instead of “all-girl,” try “classes for the mathematically challenged,” the investigators suggested in discussions with Ventura officials.

“They didn’t sound like they were joking,” said Patricia Chandler, who oversees curriculum for the Ventura Unified School District.

A letter that arrived Monday formally ended a brief dispute between Ventura school officials and investigators in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. Federal officials in January launched an inquiry into sex-segregated classes at two Ventura schools after somebody complained that the practice is discriminatory against boys.

Ironically, the program has always allowed boys to enroll and now has one boy among its 360 students districtwide. But recruiting efforts, until now, have been aimed mainly at girls and the classes have been referred to, informally, as “all-girl.”

Federal investigators declined, as a matter of policy, to identify the person who objected to the Ventura program. And Ventura officials said they have no idea who complained, adding that parents have shown strong support for the single-sex classes that began in 1993.

The Ventura district won nationwide attention for the classes, including stories on CNN, network newscasts and in dozens of newspapers nationwide. Anacapa Middle School was targeted for a study on the benefits of teaching boys and girls separately.

And the American Assn. of University Women awarded a $10,000 fellowship to Christine Mikles, a teacher who pioneered the courses at Ventura High.

Educators at both schools contend that segregating the sexes in math may help reduce girls’ fears of the subject.

Studies consistently show that girls’ interest in upper-level math and science courses falls off markedly starting around the seventh grade, educators say.

Same-sex classes give girls a feeling of security and encourage them to participate in class discussions, Mikles said. The number of girls enrolled in trigonometry has grown from 28 in 1994 to 51 this year, a change Mikles attributes to the success of the two female-only classes offered last year.

“The all-girl classes are outperforming some of my co-ed classes,” she said.

After examining the Ventura district’s 70-page response to the civil rights complaint, federal investigators determined that no discrimination had taken place. Boys are allowed to enroll in the classes, investigators noted.

But Ventura educators will have to change the way they refer to the classes and how they recruit students for them, federal officials said. Instead of calling it an all-girl math class, teachers must call it a course for students “who lack confidence in their ability to do math,” Chandler said.

Or they could use “classes for the mathematically challenged,” a moniker suggested by an investigator in the Civil Rights Office during a telephone conversation recently, Chandler said.

“We can laugh about it now,” Chandler said. “But I don’t know what we’re going to end up calling it informally.”

Mikles, too, is semantically challenged by the task. “Maybe we’ll call it enriched. Gender enriched,” she said.

“Gee, I don’t know if that would be OK because it includes the word gender .”