Boarding Schools for Girls

Fears that the only state-sponsored girls school in the British City of Leeds is about to be closed prompted parents and other concerned community members to express their dissatisfaction during a recent public meeting.

A Jan. 20 article in the Yorkshire Evening Post described the controversy surrounding the future of Parklands Girls High School:

Parents, staff, pupils and the community were given the chance to have their say at the first public meeting held on the issue of girls-only schooling. A further eight meetings are being held.

Speaking before the meeting, parent governor Lisa Evans whose daughter goes to Parklands, said: "Education Leeds has made its mind up."

Year 12 pupil Arfana Kauser, 16, of Harehills, said: "The school teaches us to be strong independent women who are going to be successful in the future. I think it's important it's not nixed."

Labels: girls school, great britain

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Julia Bolz, an attorney from Seattle, Washington, has become a strong advocate for girls education in Afghanistan. A Jan. 3 article by Hal Bernton of McClatchy Newspapers provided the following information about Bolz's school-building efforts:

In the past seven years, Bolz has raised money to construct 19 new schools and repair more than a dozen others in Balkh province in northern Afghanistan. Those schools, now operated by the Afghan Ministry of Education, serve nearly 18,000 students, most of whom are girls.

Next year, Bolz's organization, Ayni Education International, plans to spend about $600,000 building, expanding and maintaining schools as well as operating two teacher training centers.

Bolz, who no longer practices law, spends part of the year in the U.S. tapping a fundraising network that ranges from Seattle schoolchildren to the National Geographic Society, and part of the year in Afghanistan rallying community support.

Labels: girls school, international

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The Denver board of education has granted approval for the Girls Athletic Leadership School (GALS), a charter school that is set to open for the 2010-2011 academic year.

According to a Dec. 31, 2009, article by Jeremy P. Meyer of The Denver Post, the school will start with two grades (six and seven), but plans to expand through 12th grade:

"We know that girls focus on academics more when they're in an all-girls setting, simply put, because we are taking away a large social distraction, especially in middle school," said Elizabeth Wolfson, founder of the school, which will be in south-central Denver.

"Research shows girls begin to trail off when they hit middle school," she said. "That is because of social distractions between girls and boys but also between girls and girls. By separating them out, we can work on the girl-to-girl piece."

The academic program at GALS is to be based on the Expeditionary Learning model, which emphasizes active learning, character growth and teamwork. A large part of the day will focus on health and wellness.

Students will start in the morning with exercise, have opportunities for movement throughout the school day and must participate in extracurricular activities.

Labels: girls school, charter school

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One of two candidates in a Dec. 1 runoff election for mayor of Atlanta, Georgia, used part of a Nov. 30 radio broadcast to promote her familiarity with  and support of  single-sex schools and other innovative educational approaches.

A Nov. 30 article by Atlanta Journal Constitution political reporter Jim Galloway included the following comments from mayoral candidate Mary Norwood:

I have been a strong advocate for charter schools. I've been a strong advocate for innovation. & I do love people being able to think outside the box and have some different rules. ... Other cities have many more charter schools than Atlanta does right now, and we have buildings that are vacant.

We need to be very thoughtful about what our resources are, and how we can best educate our children. ... I'm also a big proponent of single-sex schools. I went to a girls college for two years, and I understand the difference in single-sex education.

Labels: colleges, advocacy, single-sex education, girls school, politics

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An overburdened school for girls in Ireland was forced to hold a lottery to determine which prospective students would be allowed to enroll next year, a move that has upset a number of parents and children in the community of Tullamore, Co Offaly.

A Nov. 22 article by John Whelan of Independent.ie provided the following glimpse into the controversy:

Sacred Heart had 175 applications for 120 positions. School principal Pauline McKenna says 50 places were set aside for sisters of existing students and three are reserved for exceptional cases.

The Sacred Heart School was founded by Catherine McAuley in 1836; but it is 1985 since any structural development took place at the school, which is operating to its capacity with 700 students.

"We are gutted by what has happened," said one desperate parent."We have appealed the decision as our daughter has gone to a town school all along and we assumed she would simply go on to the Sacred Heart. All her friends got in and she didn't.

"This is very hard for a 12-year-old to take and we don't have any other options, unless a boarding school and that's not possible. It doesn't seem fair," complained the mother, who was also anxious not to be identified as she and her husband still hope their daughter can join friends in secondary school at the Sacred Heart next September.

Labels: girls school, admissions, ireland

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Community opposition has derailed plans to build a Muslim school for girls with a capacity of 5,000 students in Briefield Mills, England. But according to a Nov. 30 article in the Lancashire Telegraph, the group that led the fight against the school isn't ready to rest just yet:

It was announced earlier this week that Islamic Help, a national charity, had scrapped plans to convert the seven-acre site into a 5,000-pupil boarding school for Muslim girls.

But it was revealed that the 50-pupil Ghausia High School for girls, based in Nelson, will still look to move to the site and the trust will look to create a sports centre for the whole community, alongside a commercial village housing start-up businesses. &

Clitheroe Road Residents Association, which now has a 1,000-person petition against the plans, vowed to continue their fight.

Labels: girls school, great britain, boarding schools, muslim

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The growth of a Manhattan charter school for girls has prompted a bit of controversy, as officials grapple to find a way to accommodate the schools expansion without having a negative impact on other schools in the area.

An article in the Nov.27-Dec. 3 edition of The Downtown Express provided the following details about the debate:

Girls Preparatory Charter school, with grades kindergarten through fifth, wants to expand to include middle-school grades 6 through 8. The Department of Education has proposed three alternative plans to rearrange several district schools to make room for the charter school ...

But parents at Shuang Wen, a district bilingual English-Mandarin school with grades K to 8, at 327 Cherry St. near Montgomery St., and parents at P.S. 20 on Essex St. near E. Houston St., dont like the idea of sharing space with other district schools to accommodate the charter school expansion. &

Some parents at the meeting contended that the D.O.E. alternative plans for Girls Prep take resources away from mostly low-income immigrant students. They characterized the loss of resources as a violation of their civil rights.

But Miriam Lewis Raccah, founder and executive director of Girls Prep, said she understood Shuang Wen and P.S. 20 parents concern because her school is also squeezed for space. She said Girls Prep has been successful in small, shared spaces and that other schools could also be successful.

Labels: girls school, charter school, new york

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