Janelle Sou Roberts/The Journal Gazette Caitlyn Sampson, left, Kayleigh Foor, center, and Katelin Snyder do aerobics during gym class at New Haven High School on Thursday. New Haven gym classes are split by gender.

Janelle Sou Roberts/The Journal Gazette Trent Culbertson lifts weights during an all-male gym class at New Haven High School on Thursday.

Ninth-graders in a gym class at New Haven High School spent Dec. 1 running for eight minutes, doing Tae-Bo for eight minutes, crunching their abdominal muscles for eight minutes and working their buns for eight minutes.

It was a well-rounded class where the students worked every part of their body. The only thing missing: boys.

New Haven High is one of several schools in the region that separates boys and girls for physical education. Teachers say in same-sex classes the students are less distracted, girls participate more and boys are able to play at a higher level.

“I like the individual classes only because the talent level is so much different between the boys and the girls,” said Pam Moore, New Haven High gym teacher. She’s found boys to be better at basketball. But at “volleyball, however, the girls follow the rules. They play actual game situations. Whereas, the boys like to smash and they’re into the net a lot. I found that the levels were so different that it was easier to divide the boys on this end and the girls on this end.”

Despite the reported benefits, such a gender split is against the law for physical education in public schools.

The federal Title IX legislation, which often garners headlines and debate at the college athletics level, mandates that physical education classes be coed, unless an activity involves bodily contact, teachers are discussing human sexuality or the teacher objectively separates students based on their ability without regard to their gender.

Title IX was passed in 1972 to ensure that women had the same educational opportunities as males in public schools.

East Allen County Schools officials said they’re in compliance with the law, because the same curriculum is offered to both boys and girls. EACS officials also expressed concern that female students may be injured by the rough approach some male students take while playing some sports.

“You and I both know that the approach that genders can take might be a little bit different. There might be the potential for injury,” said Andrew Melin, executive director of secondary education and technology for EACS. “I think the deal would be, as you look at the curriculum that’s offered for physical education, it’s the same type of curriculum for boys and girls. They’re learning about the same types of sports.”

Experts do not all agree with such an assessment, however.

Elaine Blakemore, chairwoman and professor in the psychology department at IPFW, thinks Melin provides a reasonable explanation for separating students. Blakemore, whose expertise is in children’s gender roles, said there is no question that adolescent boys are physically bigger and stronger than girls.

“Once children go through puberty there are definitive differences in the physical capabilities for sports and athletics,” Blakemore said.

But an expert on the Title IX legislation thinks EACS is unlawfully separating boys and girls.

“It wouldn’t stand up in court, I’ll tell you that,” said Mary Curtis, associate director of athletics at the University of Iowa. Curtis has done extensive research on the Title IX legislation.

“The fact that they have single-sex classes, if someone made a complaint they would not have a leg to stand on according to federal law.”

Curtis also disagreed with Blakemore’s rationalization, saying girls are more physically mature than boys in the ninth grade.

“At the ninth-grade level the girls are probably more apt to hurt the boys,” Curtis said.

Curtis highlights the part of the federal legislation that allows schools to separate students during contact sports, but said if the girls in Moore’s gym class were doing only aerobics, they were violating the law.

“For actual physical activity, unless it’s a contact sport, no, I don’t buy their rationale at all,” Curtis said.

Melin said the district also has to consider locker room supervision, and if there were a coed class with a male teacher, he would not be able to be in the girls’ locker room during changing time. School officials would need to make sure that the one female gym teacher was always in the locker room to supervise the women, which is not possible if she doesn’t have a class at that time, Melin said.

Little enforcement

The state and federal departments of education can’t possibly monitor whether every public school in the country is following this mandate and don’t really push schools to follow the statute.

“It isn’t enforced, but superintendents, in their assurances to us about meeting certain requirements, say that they have met the spirit of whatever it is,” said Mary Tiede Wilhelmus, spokeswoman for the Indiana Department of Education. “Most of them do. We’re not a police agency.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education declined to comment on New Haven High’s gym classes nor any other same-sex classes. The spokesman also declined to say what the penalties would be for a school not following the mandate.

“We do not make determinations … we would need to investigate it before saying what the consequences are,” said Jim Bradshaw, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Education.

EACS’ Prince Chapman Academy, and several schools in Wawasee Community Schools in Kosciusko County also separate boys and girls for physical education. New Haven High hasn’t always split boys and girls in ninth-grade physical education. The change came about five years ago, Moore said.

“(Coed) was kind of hard, because it was like if we would play basketball we had to make rules that a girl touched the ball before they scored,” said Pam Moore, New Haven gym teacher. “Otherwise, it was a boy took the ball out of bounds, passed to a boy, who passed to a boy, who made a layup. Then a boy took it out and brought it back and made a layup. We had to make rules to keep the girls involved.”

Many schools in the region take advantage of the government’s exception of separating students for activities involving bodily contact.

West Noble High School students are separated for basketball and wrestling but participate together in bowling, volleyball, softball, square dancing and roller skating. When possible, boys and girls at Central Noble High are integrated into the same activities, Principal Jerry Wellman said.

“Sometimes it’s difficult to have facilities that will accommodate all the girls and boys at the same time,” Wellman said.

The girls and boys are technically in different classes because the roster is listed by which locker room they go to. But with a gymnasium that is used by not only high school students but junior high as well, there isn’t always enough space to accommodate the two classes, Wellman said.

“The people who (set) the Title IX (legislation) don’t always give you the money to make it logistically possible,” Wellman said.

Though New Haven High has the resources to accommodate boys and girls classes, the students themselves are mixed about whether that’s the best option for them. Some of the girls in Moore’s gym class experienced a coed setup while attending New Haven Middle School and wish the boys were still in their class.

“Most of the girls don’t give you a challenge, but the guys do and you can challenge against them to do better,” freshman Lindsley Gaskill said. “Some of the girls here, they don’t like to do anything and then you don’t have a challenge.”

Some of the girls said they would have felt embarrassed doing the kickboxing moves Tae-Bo requires if boys were in their class.

“I like boys and all girls,” freshman Kailey Myers said. “It’s easier to do when it’s all girls.”

New Haven High students are required to take one year of physical education to graduate, which most take in their freshman or sophomore year, and can take advanced physical education as an elective.

Junior Eric Moeller said he liked that his freshman gym class was not coed.

“You can do sports and stuff and activities with other guys and you can actually do them the hardest that you want and you don’t have to back off for the girls,” Moeller said.

But some of his classmates had a different opinion.

“It makes me feel good to know that I’m stronger than the girls,” senior Brandon Keesler said. “I see the girls lifting like, light weights, and I know that I’m stronger. It boosts me up and makes me want to lift even harder to stay stronger.”

During his tenure with EACS, Melin has never received a complaint about New Haven High’s gym classes.

Different rules

While public schools are required to follow the federal government’s restrictions, religious schools are not. Two of Fort Wayne’s Catholic high schools have different philosophies on how to structure their gym classes.

Gym classes at Bishop Dwenger High School have always been coed, said Athletic Director Andy Johns. That’s how he prefers it.

“I think there’s a lot that can be learned with the different sports,” Johns said. “Some of the males have an easy time with some, the females have an easy time with others. It’s a neat thing to see. They get along well and learn from each other.”

Bishop Luers High School gym teacher A.J. Kalver has taught both coed and same-sex classes and would rather split boys and girls.

In his 10 years teaching at the school, Kalver hasn’t had any complaints.

“There’s a lot of laws that the U.S. government makes that don’t make a lot of sense,” Kalver said.

“I think that both boys and girls will get more out of their physical education experience if they’re in a comfortable environment with their own gender, competing against their own gender, working with and enjoying the company of their own gender.”

As the school’s wrestling coach, Kalver teaches a less intense version of the sport to his female students but otherwise each class goes through the same units.

He feels the girls perform better in gym when the boys are not present.

“I think that the opportunity for the girls, especially girls who aren’t as competitive and aren’t as aggressive, to be more successful when it’s just girls in the room,” Kalver said. “I think if you added half the class of boys who, not always, but have a tendency to be No. 1, bigger, stronger, more aggressive, more competitive as in percentages, I think a lot of girls would get shoved out of the way. They would get pushed to the back. They would have a tendency to be fearful of their environment.”

That said, Kalver doesn’t count out his top female students.

“I have a certain percentage of girls in my class who would do just fine in any boys class that I teach,” Kalver said. “They would not be intimidated. They would compete at the same level as the boys, if not higher. The best boys.”

ksoderlund@jg.net