Reflections on the Gathering

It felt like an historic event. The Gathering of Leaders of Single Gender Schools at Wheelock College June 3, 4, & 5, 2007 was remarkable in the determination of the participants. I have never been in the presence of such a positive group of educators in all my years of education. The usual griping of administrators over lack of support from central administration , or the failings of their teachers seemd totally absent from this group. Also, as was mentioned by many there was no recitation of the negative statistics on young Black males, with the accompanying outcry. This group didn’t have time for that. They knew the stats but were moving beyond them, and intent on doing something about them. They needed to support and help one another by sharing their successes as well their needs.
There seemd to be few in the group that felt certain that all male schools was the answer to the problem, but given the options this was a good one, and could provide oppportunities for their students. They wanted to give it their best shot.

There were questions about how can we do this better rather than complaints about what’s not working.

Here are some of the issue that emerged in the two days:

Sharing their backgrounds, these leaders saw great commonalities as well as a sense that history was repeating itself

Compassion was a common theme.

We can’t wait for a magic bullet, we need to act!

We are the new change agents; our own little schools will be the leaders.

A sense of pioneering

This is not a job it’s a ministry

What kind of research can help us? Transform the data so it fits all Black male schools.
Replicate solutions by sharing

Relationship with students as the hidden variable

How can thse efforts be sustained once the founding leader/personality moves on.

How can local schools of higher education help?

There was a clarification that some of these schools are the result of individuals who wanted to found a single gender school for young men in the belief that they could create an institution that would attract young men and providde them with a high quality education; and those schools that emerged as an effort to improve failing co-ed schools by creating two single gender schools. The former could generate an image from scratch, while the latter needed to escape the old image before getting a new one.

Interestingly, it was recognized that the current, more conservative national administration was more resonsive to single gender schools, than a possibly more liberal 2008 administration that might see the issue of gender equity as more important , and hence not support such efforts.