Brockport principal Dana Boshnack had seen enough -- enough classrooms filling up with boys, enough from parents who were pulling their girls out of class. She knew that there were challenges in convincing freshman girls to sign up for Technology courses, but this was more than a challenge. This was a situation that now saw many classrooms with no girls at all.
"We obviously have one or two students in some of those classes who are females, but for a majority of classes, they're now all males," Boshnack told us.
These Technology courses are the kind that lead to college Engineering courses, where RIT also sees low female numbers (about 23% this year). So Boshnack worked with Brockport teachers to create a new all-girls Technology class. It's for freshmen only, and it will be taught exactly the same way mixed-gender classes are taught.
The decision to create the all-girls class is already paying off.
"We're looking at essentially doubling the number of female students signing up for technology," Boshnack explains. Teacher Gordy DiBattisto concurs.
"We opened up the class and in about a week, we reached full capacity," DiBattisto says. "That just shows that there's a need. There's an interest from students and from parents."
