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KaTiedra Argro has been on a mission: restore her college’s fame as a premier Philadelphia academic establishment the place younger girls hone their abilities, excel as leaders, and discover their voices.
The principal of the Philadelphia Excessive College for Ladies spent final fall visiting 48 elementary and center faculties to recruit college students. She went everywhere in the metropolis, from Northeast to Southwest, to promote children on an historic all-girls college that was based 13 years earlier than the Civil Warfare.
A member of Ladies Excessive’s Class of 1999, Argro got here to a tough conclusion. “My takeaway was that no person is aware of what the Philadelphia Excessive College for Ladies was anymore,” she stated.
Ladies Excessive is without doubt one of the oldest all-girls public excessive faculties within the nation and nonetheless one of many largest, in accordance with a Chalkbeat evaluation of federal information. However the pillar of Philadelphia training is affected by a “diminishing” model, Argro stated. Within the Nineteen Eighties, the college’s enrollment reportedly reached 2,000 college students. Its well-known graduates embody feminist lawyer Gloria Allred, R&B star Jill Scott, and Barbara Harris, the primary lady ordained a bishop of the Episcopal Church.
However in simply the final two years, the variety of college students has plunged from 900 to 600; roughly two-thirds of these enrolled are juniors and seniors. And on the latest state math exams, fewer than 1 in 5 college students achieved proficiency.
Social media additionally delivered a blow to the college’s fame. In 2023, Ladies Excessive’s earlier principal denied a number of college students their diplomas throughout the commencement ceremony for apparently breaking decorum by dancing and celebrating onstage, prompting cheers and laughter from the viewers.
The incident spurred indignation and controversial tales nationwide that touched on race and cultural norms. The district subsequently eliminated that principal from her put up.
With these challenges high of thoughts, Argro — who took over as principal final 12 months — has been exhausting at work by means of a course of she in comparison with pace courting.
Throughout her whirlwind tour of three faculties a day, she gave out T-shirts and magnets, and left college students a pamphlet and a video “displaying all the good issues taking place” at Ladies Excessive, just like the golf equipment, the sports activities, the assist teams, and the awards college students win. She personally helped college students fill out purposes — even to varsities moreover Ladies Excessive, within the spirit of the college’s honor code emphasizing “service to others.”
It appears her efforts have paid off. Primarily based on responses to admissions presents in the highschool choice course of, 275 college students stated they might attend Ladies Excessive subsequent 12 months, which might enhance its enrollment to 670, or a roughly 12% enhance from this 12 months.
Argro invited households to an “acceptance day” occasion on March 22, and most got here. “I don’t need them to alter their minds over the summer season,” she stated.
On the similar time, Argro acknowledged that she eased the requirements for Ladies Excessive’s entrance standards to broaden the admissions pool.
Marcia L. Hinton, a 1974 graduate and the chief director of the college’s alumnae affiliation, stated faculties that serve solely feminine college students aren’t as valued as they as soon as had been, however that they’re nonetheless invaluable.
“All-girls’ faculties give ladies a secure house to discover, be taught, and discover out who they’re with out having to get that different intercourse concerned,” Hinton stated.
Ladies Excessive pupil Manjay Konneh, who emigrated from Guinea throughout the COVID pandemic, exemplifies Hinton’s sentiment. She wanted a spot the place she felt appreciated and will get further consideration.
Now a 16-year-old senior who’s been accepted to this point to Drexel College, Swarthmore Faculty, and Villanova College, Konneh recalled that when she visited the college, “I felt they actually wished me right here.”
Philly’s specialised excessive faculties, charters have an effect on Ladies Excessive
Latest information signifies the variety of single-gender public faculties has grown within the final a number of years, though they continue to be a tiny fraction of the practically 100,000 U.S. public faculties.
In 2014-15, there have been some 283 single-gender public faculties within the nation. By 2022-23, that quantity had risen to 366, in accordance with the Training Week Analysis Heart.
In 2002, the identical 12 months President George W. Bush signed the No Little one Left Behind Act into legislation — a transfer that led to extra federal funding for single-gender faculties — there have been seemingly fewer than two dozen of them, in accordance with one estimate.
However some all-girls’ faculties that began extra lately haven’t lasted very lengthy. As an example, Ladies Athletic Management College in Denver opened in 2010 as a center college and added highschool grades in 2014. But it surely introduced final month that it’s going to shut the highschool on the finish of this college 12 months, as a result of low enrollment.
Established in 1848 — practically 75 years earlier than American girls had been assured the proper to vote — Ladies Excessive was based 12 years after Central Excessive College opened for boys.
A few of Philadelphia’s unique neighborhood faculties, many constructed within the first twenty years of the twentieth century, had been additionally for many years segregated by gender. However for greater than a century, Ladies Excessive was the vacation spot for the town’s good, motivated feminine college students. Constance Clayton, the primary lady and first Black individual to be the college district’s superintendent, graduated from the college.
“We may go and be answerable for all the things,” stated Susan Thomas, who graduated in 1970 and recalled her classmates being from each neighborhood and socio-economic background. “The varsity had an extended custom of encouraging ladies and telling them they could possibly be no matter they need, you don’t should be a nurse or a instructor. I went to enterprise college.”
The modifications for Ladies Excessive began within the Nineteen Seventies. In response to strain from the state Human Relations Fee to racially desegregate the district as a complete, officers created a number of specialised excessive faculties. These included George Washington Carver Excessive College of Engineering and Science and the Excessive College for Inventive and Performing Arts, generally known as CAPA.
It was additionally in that period that Masterman, then the vacation spot for the town’s highest-achieving center schoolers, started phasing in highschool grades.
The varsity district initially established Ladies Excessive as a counterpart to the elite Central Excessive College, which solely educated younger males. Then within the Nineteen Eighties, Central began admitting ladies after a number of feminine college students within the district sued. They argued that Central provided boys superior academic alternatives than what was accessible to them at Ladies Excessive on the time.
Technically, like Central, Ladies Excessive admits each female and male college students. All through many of the college’s historical past, if a male pupil did apply, he was discouraged from attending, in accordance with a number of individuals interviewed. “We’ve got no report of a male pupil ever attending the college,” stated district spokesperson Christina Clark.
The constitution college motion took off within the Nineteen Nineties. And within the early 2000s, the district created extra small, themed excessive faculties. These included Science Management Academy, Workshop College, and U College.
This proliferation of recent faculties, and the modifications to admissions at established excessive faculties, meant that what Ladies Excessive provided not stood out prefer it as soon as did.
Thomas wonders whether or not there’s nonetheless a spot for Ladies Excessive in at the moment’s atmosphere. “Single-sex training had its worth, however does it anymore?” she requested.
Metropolis Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, for one, sees the worth clearly. She graduated from Ladies Excessive in 2001 and has remained the college’s most vocal advocate in Metropolis Corridor.
“I deeply loved my educational expertise there,” stated Gilmore Richardson, who sponsored a decision honoring her alma mater when it celebrated its a hundred and seventy fifth anniversary in 2023. “It was the catalyst for all the things good I’ve finished in my life.”
Huge Sister mentoring program helps many college students succeed
Although she toured the town extolling the virtues of the college, Argro herself was initially reluctant to go to Ladies Excessive.
She grew up at tenth Avenue and Cumberland Avenue, in public housing, within the coronary heart of North Philadelphia. By her personal account, her house life was marked by poverty and different difficulties.
However she was at all times a high pupil, and her mother and father invested in her training. It was at her mom’s insistence that she enrolled at Ladies Excessive. In actual fact, Argro didn’t actually get a say within the matter.
“My mother advised me, ‘I made the choice for you,‘” Argro recalled. “She stated to me that she felt like if she may omit boys for the college day, she was profitable.”
At first, Argro plotted how she would switch out. However she was quickly drawn in by the supportive environment, the top quality of instruction, the numerous golf equipment and sports activities alternatives, and the sensation of sisterhood.
“It was the most effective choice my mother may have made for me,” she stated. “Right here, everyone was targeted on college and entering into faculty.”
At one level, she was exhausted from concurrently holding down a job and going to high school. She contemplated dropping out. However her counselor at Ladies Excessive talked her out of that. Argro’s undecided she would’ve gotten the identical steerage at a coed college.
In actual fact, with out the supportive “village” at Ladies Excessive, Argro stated, she wouldn’t have in the end reached Temple College and Gwynedd Mercy College, the place she earned two grasp’s levels.
Argro grew to become a instructor after which principal within the Philadelphia college district, working at John Barry Elementary after which Martin Luther King Excessive, the place she was an assistant principal.
She utilized to be Ladies Excessive principal twice, as soon as 5 years in the past and once more final 12 months. When she was employed, she stated, it was a success of her dream. She hopes she’s a task mannequin for different ladies there.
“I felt like I wished to convey that very same pleasure or sisterhood that I felt at Ladies Excessive to different college students which may be unsure as a result of it’s an all-girls college,” she stated.
To Argro, the college isn’t outlined by the low scores on the state math check or controversy over the 2023 commencement ceremony; Argro recalled that when there have been comparable celebrations at her personal ceremony 26 years in the past, the principal on the time merely requested for quiet, then went on with the occasion. And her members of the family had been amongst those that cheered.
Argro can level to excellent news. The varsity’s four-year commencement price of 96% in 2022-23 — the latest 12 months information is out there — was up three proportion factors from the prior 12 months. And 77% of eleventh graders scored proficient or higher on the state literature examination in 2024, seven proportion factors higher than the 12 months earlier than.
However identical to the variety of Ladies Excessive college students, district enrollment has fallen lately. The 12 months after Argro graduated highschool, district-run faculties enrolled 205,000 college students; that determine has now fallen to round 120,000, as a result of each constitution proliferation and a metropolis inhabitants dip.
That decline has led Philadelphia college officers to start considering completely closing faculties for the primary time since shuttering or merging 24 faculties in 2013.
Whereas Ladies Excessive has outstanding alumnae and a storied historical past, it’s unclear whether or not these will affect selections the district in the end makes about which faculties to shut.
College students say they get worth from Ladies Excessive that isn’t nearly lecturers.
A number of college students are notably keen on the Huge Sister program. It’s a longstanding Ladies Excessive custom during which older college students take their youthful friends below their wing. Huge Sister helps present each mentor and mentee with a vital step of their growth.
Brianni Carter, president of the college’s sophomore class, stated each Central and Ladies Excessive accepted her. She appreciated the lecturers at each faculties however in the end selected Ladies for one more cause: “On the Ladies’ orientation, there was such a sense of togetherness and group. Like Central, it’s rigorous, however you additionally get the assist you want.”
Ladies Excessive pupil Mya Torres, 17, stated her mom attended Ladies Excessive for ninth and tenth grade however needed to go away as a result of household points.
When she introduced Mya to orientation, certainly one of her mom’s former academics acknowledged her. “That’s the type of place that is,” Torres stated.
Her mom actually desires Torres to have the complete, four-year Ladies Excessive expertise.
Dale Mezzacappa is a senior author for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, the place she covers Okay-12 faculties and early childhood training in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at [email protected].
