Single-Sex Classes

“Single-Sex Classes a First for State’s Schools” (Aug. 29) states that the students at Mary McLeod Bethune and Horace Mann academies in Stockton are “the first California students ever to attend state-subsidized schools in which boys attend class only with boys and girls only with girls.”

I attended Purche Avenue Elementary School in Gardena. In the first quarter of sixth grade I was part of an all-girl class. I was disappointed when the all-girl and all-boy classes were integrated in the second quarter, as at that age boys were nothing but a nuisance. We were never told why the “experiment” failed, but I gather the class of 40 11-year-old boys was a bit difficult for the teachers to handle. This was in 1969, and although I have never met another person with a similar experience, Purche was and is certainly a state-subsidized school.

KAREN LEUSCHNER