"I miss having them, but I'm studying better without them," stated Chloe Johnson, when asked how she liked having classes without boys. Chloe is taking part in a pilot program for sixth-graders at Bruner Middle School, where she is in an all-girls class for both reading and math. "It helps me concentrate better. I'm doing better than I did last year," she said, adding, "I'm happy they didn't make all of our classes like that."

Imani Wright agrees that it's easier to concentrate in an all-girls class, and thinks the program is a good idea. "Boys make too much noise and they distract me," she says. "Boys keep on banging. Now I can hear the teacher better and I'm getting better grades."

Arric Thomas admits the noise level can be high in a class with boys, but says they still get their work done. "Girls talk low and boys talk loud to each other. There's tapping, pencils rolling around the desk, people dropping pencil sharpeners... It can be kind of annoying," he admits, but says that he and his brother have both improved their grades, because they are less distracted. He also enjoys having so many friends in the classes, which helps when he has questions about the assignments.

"We make more friends," agrees Jaden Betts. "We actually pay attention more. My grades are better."

Chrys Hee claims his grades have improved, too. He thinks the Bruner administration was "very smart" to do the experiment. "We mostly pay attention to the only girl in class - which is my teacher," he says. Chrys has noticed that in the all-boys classes, there is more joking and more communication overall. "When there's girls, we might be shy, because we like a girl," he explains.

Language arts teacher, Helen Holt, has noticed that the girls are more open, too. "They seem a little liberated. There's no boy pressure on them," she says. "When a mixed class comes in, you can see the difference."

She has also noticed the difference in how the students process directions. "You don't have to give a lot of directions to the girls, but the boys need more specific directions. They're very sequential - it's one step at a time for them."

Norma Eliason teaches gender-specific regular math classes, while her husband teaches mixed classes of advanced math. Duke Eliason is tracking the work of both classes, including the rate at which the students are turning in homework and their grades on classwork assignments and tests. So far, it appears that the single-gender regular classes are performing as well as the advanced classes.

"That's why we're doing this," says Principal John Spolski, who is keeping a close eye on the students' progress. "Right now, we're very pleased with the program. I think that after talking to the teachers and looking at the data, we'll probably expand it to the seventh grade next year."