Treatment of Schoolgirls Is Under Study

Equal treatment for boys and girls in the nation’s public schools has been the law since 1973. But only in 1994 did California begin checking to see if the law is obeyed--and only this school year did state gender-equity inspectors visit Ventura County.

Among their findings in visits to districts in Ventura, Moorpark, Oxnard, Santa Paula and Simi Valley:

* Boys are overrepresented in industrial-arts and computer-drafting classes at Ventura High School.

* Some Ventura schools improperly separate boys and girls during career-counseling sessions and gym classes.

* Moorpark’s Chaparral Middle School must work harder to make sure neither boys nor girls dominate in core academic classes.

* The Santa Paula Union High School District is not providing required gender-equity training for its staff.

Across the state, few districts are purposefully unfair to girls, said Alicia Hetman, a gender-equity specialist at the state Department of Education. But school officials are poorly informed about the rules, she said.

“I am concerned about the lack of training,” Hetman said. “Teachers don’t know how to put their kids on an equal playing field.”

Many Ventura County educators agree, saying they welcomed the first state gender-equity review to learn more about how to help girls reach their full potential.

“I think it’s kind of a wake-up call,” said Ventura Unified School District trustee Velma Lomax. “We encourage the math classes for the girls, and you think you’re doing all the things possible, and they say, ‘You’ve overlooked this.’ And we go, ‘Oh, we didn’t think about that.’ ”

Rules to guarantee equal educational opportunities for girls on public campuses have been on the books since Congress passed legislation 25 years ago to bar sex discrimination in education.

Yet it wasn’t until four years ago that the state began checking to see that school districts actually followed the rules. And since only 20 districts are inspected each year, this was the first time a handful of Ventura County schools were selected for examination.

Less Attention

In Ventura County, five out of 20 school districts were checked this year: the county’s two high school districts in Santa Paula and Oxnard, and unified districts in Moorpark, Ventura and Simi Valley.

The push for laws requiring the gender-equity reviews occurred after a landmark 1992 report by the American Assn. of University Women that concluded public schools are biased against girls.

The report said girls are being shortchanged in the classroom in a variety of ways: Teachers pay significantly less attention to girls than boys, courses often reinforce sexual stereotypes, standardized tests are biased against girls, and girls are steered away from careers in math and science.

So in 1994 the association lobbied for and won passage of a law in California requiring the state to find out if schools are abiding by laws intended to give girls a fair shake.

Krys Wolff, who will become the association’s state chapter president in July, participated in fighting for the gender-equity review legislation.

The rules in the book were “essentially ignored. . . . It became very apparent that half the population was not served,” Wolff said. “One way to look at that was to see if they were in compliance with the laws that were on the books.”

Inspectors found that the Ventura County schools they visited were no better or worse than average, Hetman said. In four years of inspections, she has never found any school district fully in compliance with the law.

A common problem is lack of equal access to advanced academic offerings, such as math and science, where boys often predominate.

While it’s easy for schools to say they are following the law by opening all their classes and programs to girls, state officials say they must try harder to ensure balance in the school’s extracurricular activities and elective classes as well.

“It’s one thing to say, ‘Sure, girls are welcome in this shop class,” ’ said Karen Humphrey, a gender-equity consultant for the state Department of Education. “But if girls in the shop class are treated in a very unfriendly fashion, if they’re not given a supportive environment . . . you create de facto discrimination.”

Even classes that are unintentionally dominated by one gender can be harmful, experts say, because those in the minority may be discouraged. Inspectors found that Chaparral Middle School in the Moorpark Unified School District, for example, needs to take more care to avoid such situations, Hetman said.

Losing in Sports

An area in which girls are often shortchanged, in Ventura County and throughout the state, is sports, according to Hetman.

In many school sports programs, Hetman has seen unequal facilities, unequal participation and fewer opportunities for girls.

At one state school she visited recently, the district built a “beautiful” boys’ locker room with tiles and skylights, she said. In contrast, the girls were left in a rundown 1970s locker room because the school ran out of money after completing the boys’ facility.

At another school, girls had no hot water for 14 years in their locker room because of a broken boiler, she said.

And statewide, a 1972 law requiring coeducational physical education classes has been widely flouted, officials say. Among those found violating the law were some campuses in Ventura Unified, where girls and boys were separated during some sessions.

Lomax said the district will take care of the problem. But she added that administrators were acting partly out of concern for objections voiced by some parents that coed gym classes could be embarrassing to students, especially in middle school.

Schools are required to show proof that girls are being given equal opportunities in sports, but few can actually do this, Hetman said.

Districts must show one of the following: they have an equal number of boys and girls participating in all sports, the participation of the underrepresented gender (usually girls) is increasing, or the school is making an effort to add sports requested by the underrepresented gender.

Another widespread problem is in the area of vocational education, Hetman said.

“You will still see mostly boys in auto shop and wood shop and girls in sewing and child care,” Hetman said. “So when they’re still offering those stereotypical courses, they’re offering gender separation. It’s very difficult for young adults to cross that traditional line if there is no support.”

At Ventura Unified, for example, the review found girls weren’t encouraged enough through counseling, course descriptions and other methods to enroll in the industrial arts or computer-drafting classes. Boys are overrepresented in both, the review found.

The state’s stance is that too many of one gender discourage the other from participating and thus takes away educational opportunities. It can also create an imbalance in other classes, Hetman said.

“You need to look at recruitment efforts . . . look at the course title and content to more equally bring in other groups,” said Marilyn Green, Moorpark district’s coordinator of special projects, who was involved in the review.

Training Rules

Training geared toward showing teachers how to get rid of bias against girls is not required for all schools. But it is a requirement for those that receive federal assistance due to their number of low-income students.

For example, the Santa Paula Union High School District, which receives such funds, was cited for not offering gender-equity training for its staff. The classes or workshops instruct teachers about the the subtle behaviors that create bias against girls in the classroom and show them some ways to correct them.

Supt. William Brandt said his district wasn’t aware of the rule but that action would be taken soon to make sure the training is provided.

“It’s not something we have any problems with,” Brandt said. “We would certainly want to be in compliance. . . . Sometimes some small things slip, and that’s the purpose of the review.”

Once a review is over, schools are given 45 days to tell the state how they will correct any problems pointed out, Hetman said. Then they are given six months more if needed to resolve the problems.

Hetman so far has had no trouble persuading schools to take corrective steps. But because follow-up is difficult, it often is a matter of trusting the school’s word that things have changed, she said.