On January 28, 2013, The Austin Chronicle announced that the AISD's board of trustees added three new single-sex schools on the East side of Austin. These schools are intended to serve as "safe havens" for minority youth. The general idea was to first take the general attendance of Pearce and Garcia middle schools and combine them, and then split them along gender lines. This plan was proposed by a trustee to the AISD board, but nothing ever came of it until recently. It seems like there wasn't an alternate plan at all- that this was going to happen either way.
Apparently, there is evidence that shows that single-sex schools don't actually help people learn, and they typically reinforce gender stereotypes, as well as cause problems for transgendered people. Another issue is transportation for the students in those districts that don't want to attend a same-sex school.
This article caught my eye because I spend a lot of time volunteering at a local feminist-modeled women's shelter and am very interested in women/gender issues. I've also gotten to know a small portion of the transgendered community in Austin recently, and these kinds of local government decisions have huge implications in their lives. It seems like by now, AISD should be able to take a step back and see that history tells us same-sex schools don't work. And on top of that, they should have the ability to see all of the almost guaranteed negative repercussions of this decision.
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