In the fall of 2009, I attended an open house for an all-girls Catholic school. I was 11 years old, and my family and I were considering whether I would join the school’s seventh-grade class the next academic year. That day, we toured the campus and heard student and faculty speakers. We learned about the school’s history and academic offerings. Underlying many of the presentations was one theme: the single-sex advantage.
Spoiler alert: My family and I were convinced. I attended that school for six years and absorbed all the academic, personal and spiritual advantages I had heard about.
Today’s single-sex schools remain committed to the idea that young men and women are more likely to thrive both academically and personally in the environment these schools provide, and they point to research to support their claim. An often-cited book published in 1990, Cornelius Riordan’s Girls and Boys in School: Together or Separate?, concluded that single-sex education offers an academic advantage, particularly for female students. Research from the International Coalition of Girls’ Schools suggests that girls are more likely to consider pursuing studies or careers in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), to experience increased confidence and motivation, and to perform better in the classroom when they are educated in single-sex environments.
But not all the literature on the topic falls so neatly in line. A review of the literature published so far in this century, published in Teaching and Teacher Education in 2021, rounded up 70 relevant articles on the topic. One highlight: “Claims that suggest providing girls and/or boys with single-sex education, alone, will have positive impacts upon students’ academic performance ought to be questioned at best and outright dismissed at worst.”
In the United States, the Catholic Church runs the largest network of private schools, and according to the National Catholic Educational Association, 6.7 percent of those schools—a total of 395—educate students using the single-gender model. Of these, 328 are secondary schools and 67 are elementary or middle schools. Dale McDonald, P.B.V.M., the vice president of public policy at the N.C.E.A., told me that for coed and single-sex Catholic schools alike “survival is a big issue going forward.” According to a report from the N.C.A.E., 20 new Catholic schools opened in the United States in the 2023-24 year, but 55 schools closed or consolidated.
Single-sex Catholic schools continue to lean into their strengths and to stress in their promotion what makes them unique. For example, Sister McDonald told me that prospective families are likely to hear that girls feel more comfortable and confident raising their hands in class if boys are not present, or that boys can focus on school more easily when not distracted by trying to impress their female classmates. She said that while these statements might play into some broad stereotypes of young people, they also match many students’ experiences and continue to resonate with them.
I was curious about how the single-sex secondary school experience had changed (or had not) since I had attended one, so I spoke with administrators and faculty from three different high schools. On one point they all agreed: From the allure of social media to the pressures of preparing for college, being a young person in 2024 is really hard. Although critics might argue single-sex schools are a relic of the past, the people I spoke with argued that single-sex Catholic schools are uniquely poised to help their students navigate ideas of service, gender, equality and faith in our world today.
Educating Boys at Boston College High School
When it comes to single-sex education, Adam Lewis is about as strong an advocate as you can find. He has been working in Jesuit Catholic education for 23 years, and 21 of those have been spent in all-boys schools. When he became the principal of Boston College High School in 2019, he fulfilled a “personal and professional ambition,” to be a leader at the school, which he says exemplifies why he is so passionate about working with young men.
At his first assembly as principal, he shocked the school’s 1,400 boys with a phrase his family in Australia often used: He challenged them “to be beautiful, to be beautiful boys.”
“At first it freaked them out,” he says. “I lost them in the first conversation. But over the last five years, I think I’ve got them back.”
Mr. Lewis’s objective is to help BC High’s students reconceptualize what a good man looks like. Qualities like sensitivity, gentleness and humility are not always associated with young boys, and Mr. Lewis believes that is a serious disservice. In his view, a conversation about how to be a good man is most effectively had in an all-boys school.
“This is harder to do in a coed school, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying,” he says. “There are huge benefits of coed. This is not one of them.”
But as it tries to educate good men, BC High also has encountered challenges. Each year, the faculty selects a topic they want to focus on in their summer professional development, one that they believe needs to be urgently addressed at their school. In 2023, the faculty unanimously voted that they needed to work on dismantling sexism.
Alison MacDonald began her professional career as an English teacher at BC High in 2001, and she has been a vice principal for the last five years. As a young female teacher, she said, she experienced sexism—in the classroom and from colleagues. At a student-led assembly that was initiated by the faculty’s summer workshop, she was asked to share her experiences in a talk to the entire school community.
“My hope,” she says, “was that they would see my experiences as unacceptable to the kind of community that has the mission and values that we say that we have, and how much it would have helped me if, in those moments, any of my students or co-workers would have acted, would have said something.”
“The one group of people that our students don’t have as peers here are girls. Our students are never, as long as you remain single-sex, going to have the experience of having pushback or dialogue in their classes from girls,” Ms. MacDonald says.
But the answer, she believes, is not to abandon the all-boys model: “I don’t think that that would do anything to stop sexism at BC High. I just want to be clear about that.… I went to a coed school. I have many colleagues that have worked in coed schools. Sexism is as rampant there as it is here.”
But others have argued that making the school coed would help in another way. In 2017, Boston news outlets reported that BC High’s board of trustees was discussing the possibility of admitting female students in an effort to address declining enrollment. The issue never came to an official vote, but it did unsettle some members of the community.
Grace Cotter Regan became the school’s president in the summer of 2017, making history as the first woman to serve in the role. (Editors’ note: Ms. Regan also serves on America Media’s board of directors.) When Ms. Regan inherited the coed question, she knew she needed to change the narrative. She said that just the perception that the school might go coed “divided the school and hurt the school.” Alumni, donors, faculty, students and staff voiced opinions, and even Cardinal Sean O’Malley, O.F.M.Cap., the archbishop of Boston, weighed in against the possible change.
While Ms. Regan believes BC High is in a stronger position than it was when she arrived in 2017, she says it is still part of her job to prioritize financial viability. As the team at BC High watches schools close in their own Archdiocese of Boston, Ms. Regan knows they need to prepare for a changing landscape. “My point to the board [of trustees] and to my team is that we need to be prepared if a school was about to close. If an all-girls school was about to close, and they came to us, what would our response be?” she says.
While she is making sure they are prepared in the event of a crisis, she doesn’t anticipate that BC High will have one. That’s due in part, she says, to the leadership’s strategic approach and their relationships with the Jesuit province and the archdiocese, but even more because of the faculty and staff’s clarity on the school’s identity and mission.
“We speak the same language,” she says. “We’re very clear on who we are and what we want to do.”
When you speak to Ms. Regan, Mr. Lewis and Ms. MacDonald, that is evident.
Ms. MacDonald believes that BC High will continue its mission of educating boys, and she hopes it does. But she tells me that she wishes there were more opportunities for girls to benefit from single-sex education, too—and in particular, she is disappointed that Boston’s girls don’t have the opportunity to experience the Jesuit school model.
“I know how much girls would respond to and just be completely transformed by Jesuit education,” she says. “I believe that girls would have as much benefit as boys do. I think it’s a justice issue that girls don’t have that opportunity.”
Mr. Lewis agrees.
“I have a daughter and we live in Boston. She will never get a Jesuit education. And so I feel that really acutely in my heart because I would really hope and desire that for her,” he says.
But if his daughter is going to receive a Jesuit education, he’s sure the place for that won’t be BC High. “In the same breath, I will also say, ‘You don’t belong here.’ I’m being as candid as I can. That is hard. But I am so clear on the value of an all-boys’ Jesuit education that I can’t make it feel right in my heart. I know that other colleagues in our place feel similarly.”
When it comes to the future of single-sex Catholic education, Mr. Lewis has faith. “I feel very passionately that it not only has a future; I think in time we’ll see it become even more important.”
Educating Girls at Dominican Academy
I cannot help but gape as I walk into the historic mansion that is now Dominican Academy on the Upper East Side of New York City. Before the Dominican Sisters of Peace began educating girls here, it was the home of Col. Michael Friedsam, the president of the luxury department store B. Altman & Company, until he died in 1931. To say its interior is impressive would be an understatement; to this day, the school has kept its original architectural elements, featuring marble fireplaces in classrooms, stained glass windows and wrought ironwork at the entrance. Girls at DA study in Colonel Friedsam’s library and take their physical education classes in the ballroom where he used to entertain. While much of his extensive art collection now belongs to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, some pieces remain in the school.
Even though the school’s space is unique (to say the least), alumnae of girls’ schools will recognize the hallmark of the model: traditions. As I hear about junior ring Mass and a freshman retreat and Christmas decorating, this Manhattan mansion somehow still reminds me of my days wearing a plaid uniform kilt alongside a few hundred of my “sisters.” I see students making themselves comfortable in this stunning space; they are doing homework by a grand staircase and organizing the seating chart for prom on a board in the cafeteria.
Three women accompany me on my campus tour: Lauren Checo, the school’s director of admissions; Dr. Alexandria M. Egler, the president; and Dr. Leslie Poole Petit, the principal.
As we walk and talk, they fill me in on the school’s history and also remark on how it has changed. The building’s sixth floor still holds the convent for the Dominican sisters, but these days there is only one sister left—Joan Franks, O.P., who teaches French and ancient Greek.
When it comes to the timely challenges the school is facing alongside their young girls, Dr. Petit says that student mental health is a top priority. The students are supportive of each other’s goals and accomplishments, but Dr. Egler says they put a tremendous amount of pressure on themselves. Dr. Petit describes the levels of anxiety she sees as “out of control” and attributes much of that to the high-pressure nature of the college admissions process. In the school’s all-honors curriculum, their ambitious and impressive students shoulder pressure from parents when it comes to grades. “Every little point counts,” Dr. Petit tells me.
In dealing with this problem, Dr. Egler and Dr. Petit are determined to be proactive instead of reactive. Seventeen faculty and staff members have been certified through a youth mental-health first aid program to respond to the students’ needs, and the school is working to get the entire faculty certified. They have also brought in speakers to focus on the girls’ overall wellness, including one who encouraged students to use the summer to decompress. “We literally had to instruct the girls on how to relax,” Dr. Petit says.
Students are not permitted to use phones during the school day, and DA is even encouraging a reduction in classroom computer use. To alleviate academic stress, the school has stopped posting their honor roll.
“Education isn’t just academics. It’s spirituality, it’s emotions, it’s mental health,” Dr. Egler explains.
As they work to help the girls reduce anxiety, DA considers its Catholic identity to be an asset. “Faith helps us help them,” Dr. Egler says. “The message is: You don’t have to carry this alone. You have to do the work and be proactive, but you’re not alone. Your family, your school community and especially God and the Holy Spirit are with you in that.”
Dr. Egler and Dr. Petit are also comforted by the fact that the girls feel safe to speak up in their school. In their eyes, it is a direct benefit of the single-sex environment. Dr. Egler believes that the girls would feel more pressure to hide the anxiety they are experiencing if DA were a coed school.
It may help that the leadership does not lean into an image of exclusivity, like other private schools in the area might. “We don’t want to be perceived as an elite school,” Dr. Egler tells me, explaining that they want the school to be both academically strong and also for everyone. “We want DA to reflect New York City.”
Having New York City as a backyard also makes DA what it is. From field trips to service and advocacy opportunities, the urban environment opens doors. Students enjoy Broadway shows, museums and city scavenger hunts, and they also look out into their community to see how they can help. Juniors, guided by faculty and staff, focus on an advocacy issue in groups; Dr. Egler and Dr. Petit are advising groups focusing on teenage homelessness and the city’s migrant crisis.
The hallmark of a DA grad? “These are women who change the world,” Dr. Egler says. “It might sound like a pat phrase, but it’s true.”
Educating Boys and Girls at Regis Jesuit High School
Twenty years ago, the all-boys Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colo., began admitting girls. But it did not go coed.
One could be forgiven for being confused. Regis Jesuit is the only co-divisional Jesuit school in North America. (There is one other in the world, in the Philippines.) The school educates boys and girls on the same campus, but it does so in separate classrooms.
David Card, the school’s president, is an alumnus, and his father taught at Regis Jesuit, so he has been around the school for much of his life—long enough to have known it first as an all-boys school.
Mr. Card is open about the fact that when they made the shift, the reaction was mixed. “Did you have a daughter that you desired to have a Catholic education? Then you’re probably excited about it,” he recalled. “And if you didn’t, you might think Regis was undermining its tradition.”
At the time, he said, some parents were worried that the school would not give sufficient attention to their sons’ education as it focused on starting the girls division. On the other hand, according to Mr. Card, there was strong support from the faculty.
“I think it took a lot of fortitude on the part of the board of trustees. I think they knew their cause was just and they were doing this in service to the archdiocese,” Mr. Card says.
When Jimmy Tricco arrived at Regis Jesuit six years ago, he was hired to serve as principal of both divisions and to aid in the school’s reorganization plan, combining academic departments and working to make the two divisions feel more like one unified school, while maintaining separate spaces for boys and girls. Before 2018, most teachers taught in either the boys division or the girls division. Now the vast majority of teachers work in both divisions.
Still the principal, Mr. Tricco calls Regis Jesuit’s model “the best of both worlds.” He is speaking as a parent of daughters and a son, but also as a veteran Catholic educator who has worked in both single-sex and coed environments. He says that as Regis Jesuit continues to thrive, other schools are reaching out to ask about it and to consider replicating aspects of the model.
As the school went through this transition, Mr. Card said, teachers who were used to working with one gender had to unpack and let go of some of the “mythology” they might have developed about what it would be like to work with another gender.
Heidi Kabadi was recently recognized for 20 years of service to Regis Jesuit. She started the same year the girls division opened, but Ms. Kabadi was hired to teach social studies in the boys division.
In 2015, she volunteered to take on girls’ social studies as well. “I felt like it would make me a better teacher to have taught both,” she says.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Ms. Kabadi became the department chair, leading 14 social studies teachers and assigning each of them their class schedule. Each teacher is responsible for five classes, and Ms. Kabadi told me that she works with each department member to understand their preferences and then assigns them two classes of boys and three classes of girls, or vice versa.
According to Ms. Kabadi, the Regis Jesuit faculty has had training sessions on the relevant research about differences between teenage boys’ and girls’ brains, and how to best motivate each. She knows teachers whose teaching methods are strongly influenced by this research, but she doesn’t always base her own teaching on it. While studies suggest that boys are motivated by competition and girls work well in groups, she has girls in class who thrive with competition, as well as boys who do well with collaborative activities. “I tend to just do as many types of activities as possible with both groups, and give each of them as individuals a chance to shine,” she says.
She said that she can see the ways young boys and girls are socialized come through in the classroom—and ultimately in their academic performance. She teaches AP U.S. History in both divisions, and while her female students tend to be more prepared for class and on top of their assignments, they consistently struggle with the multiple choice section of the AP exam. Male students, in contrast, tend to put in less preparatory work, but they perform well when asked to identify the “best answer” to a multiple choice question.
In Ms. Kabadi’s view, the difference maker is confidence. To set the girls up for success, she gave them a pep talk before the AP exam one year: “I honestly said to them, ‘What I want you to do is pretend you are a 16-year-old boy who studied for half an hour and just go with your gut, every time. Just trust yourself.’ Those girls did at least a letter grade higher when I said just trust your gut.”
While the 2018 restructuring is complete, the project of making the school feel more unified is ongoing. Academically, progress is clear. Ms. Kabadi says a major goal of the reorganization was “making sure that our departments were on the same page, that we were holding both groups to the same academic standards. I was worried that we weren’t. And now I feel like we very much are.”
Since boys and girls share a campus, if not a classroom, certain clubs and sports teams are coed, and students have the opportunity to interact with students of the opposite gender outside of class.
Ms. Kabadi has watched the slow and steady changes in the way the boys and girls interact over the course of two decades. As she describes it, “I think they see each other as classmates now in a way that they didn’t before. I think before, it felt like a competition, and each division wanted to win.”
Mr. Tricco adds: “When I first heard about Regis Jesuit, it was labeled as two different schools. I don’t think there was this sense of ownership for everyone, that the girls division teachers thought boys were their students or boys’ division teachers thought girls were their students. It was part of my task, being the first co-divisional principal, to unify the school and make sure teachers saw every student on campus, whether they taught them or not, as their student, and as someone that we were impacting directly or indirectly.”
When I asked Mr. Card about his perspective on the advantages of single-sex education and what sets Regis Jesuit apart, he stepped back and told me about an experience he had at a previous school he worked at, a dual-language school in Denver: “The principal at the school is just fantastic. I once asked her: ‘Why do you think our mode of dual-language education is better than some other ones?’ and she said, ‘I don’t know that any of them are better. What really matters is the people in the building believe in it.’ And I think there’s something similar here. Not that we believe single-sex education is inherently better, but we believe in what’s happening here.”
