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KaTiedra Argro has been on a mission: restore her college’s popularity 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 Women spent final fall visiting 48 elementary and center faculties to recruit college students. She went all around the metropolis, from Northeast to Southwest, to promote children on an historic all-girls college that was based 13 years earlier than the Civil Conflict.
A member of Women Excessive’s Class of 1999, Argro got here to a tough conclusion. “My takeaway was that no one is aware of what the Philadelphia Excessive College for Women was anymore,” she stated.
Women Excessive is likely one of the oldest all-girls public excessive faculties within the nation and nonetheless one of many largest, in response to a Chalkbeat evaluation of federal knowledge. 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 girl 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 assessments, fewer than 1 in 5 college students achieved proficiency.
Social media additionally delivered a blow to the college’s popularity. In 2023, Women Excessive’s earlier principal denied a number of college students their diplomas in the course of 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 prime of thoughts, Argro — who took over as principal final 12 months — has been onerous at work by means of a course of she in comparison with pace relationship.
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 “exhibiting all the nice issues occurring” at Women 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 functions — even to varsities in addition to Women Excessive, within the spirit of the college’s honor code emphasizing “service to others.”
It appears her efforts have paid off. Based mostly on responses to admissions gives in the highschool choice course of, 275 college students stated they’d attend Women 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 vary their minds over the summer season,” she stated.
On the identical time, Argro acknowledged that she eased the requirements for Women 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 useful.
“All-girls’ faculties give ladies a protected area to discover, be taught, and discover out who they’re with out having to get that different intercourse concerned,” Hinton stated.
Women Excessive pupil Manjay Konneh, who emigrated from Guinea in the course of the COVID pandemic, exemplifies Hinton’s sentiment. She wanted a spot the place she felt appreciated and will get additional consideration.
Now a 16-year-old senior who’s been accepted thus far 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 Women Excessive
Latest knowledge 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 response to the Schooling Week Analysis Middle.
In 2002, the identical 12 months President George W. Bush signed the No Youngster Left Behind Act into regulation — a transfer that led to extra federal funding for single-gender faculties — there have been doubtless fewer than two dozen of them, in response to one estimate.
However some all-girls’ faculties that began extra not too long ago haven’t lasted very lengthy. As an example, Women Athletic Management College in Denver opened in 2010 as a center college and added highschool grades in 2014. However it introduced final month that it’s going to shut the highschool on the finish of this college 12 months, on account of low enrollment.
Established in 1848 — practically 75 years earlier than American girls had been assured the suitable to vote — Women Excessive was based 12 years after Central Excessive College opened for boys.
A few of Philadelphia’s authentic 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, Women Excessive was the vacation spot for town’s sensible, motivated feminine college students. Constance Clayton, the primary girl and first Black individual to be the college district’s superintendent, graduated from the college.
“We may go and be answerable for every thing,” stated Susan Thomas, who graduated in 1970 and recalled her classmates being from each neighborhood and socio-economic background. “The college had a protracted custom of encouraging ladies and telling them they might be no matter they need, you don’t need to be a nurse or a trainer. I went to enterprise college.”
The adjustments for Women Excessive began within the 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, often known as CAPA.
It was additionally in that period that Masterman, then the vacation spot for town’s highest-achieving center schoolers, started phasing in highschool grades.
The college district initially established Women 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 Women Excessive on the time.
Technically, like Central, Women Excessive admits each female and male college students. All through a lot of the college’s historical past, if a male pupil did apply, he was discouraged from attending, in response to a number of individuals interviewed. “We have now no document of a male pupil ever attending the college,” stated district spokesperson Christina Clark.
The constitution college motion took off within the 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 adjustments to admissions at established excessive faculties, meant that what Women Excessive provided not stood out prefer it as soon as did.
Thomas wonders whether or not there’s nonetheless a spot for Women Excessive in as we speak’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 Women 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 every thing good I’ve executed in my life.”
Massive Sister mentoring program helps many college students succeed
Although she toured town extolling the virtues of the college, Argro herself was initially reluctant to go to Women Excessive.
She grew up at tenth Road and Cumberland Road, in public housing, within the coronary heart of North Philadelphia. By her personal account, her dwelling life was marked by poverty and different difficulties.
However she was all the time a prime pupil, and her dad and mom invested in her training. It was at her mom’s insistence that she enrolled at Women Excessive. In actual fact, Argro didn’t actually get a say within the matter.
“My mother informed 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 ambiance, the top quality of instruction, the various 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, all people 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 Women 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 Women Excessive, Argro stated, she wouldn’t have finally reached Temple College and Gwynedd Mercy College, the place she earned two grasp’s levels.
Argro turned a trainer 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 Women 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 achievement of her dream. She hopes she’s a job mannequin for different ladies there.
“I felt like I wished to convey that very same pleasure or sisterhood that I felt at Women 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 take a look at or controversy over the 2023 commencement ceremony; Argro recalled that when there have been related 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 college’s four-year commencement fee of 96% in 2022-23 — the latest 12 months knowledge is on the market — was up three share factors from the prior 12 months. And 77% of eleventh graders scored proficient or higher on the state literature examination in 2024, seven share factors higher than the 12 months earlier than.
However identical to the variety of Women Excessive college students, district enrollment has fallen in recent times. The 12 months after Argro graduated highschool, district-run faculties enrolled 205,000 college students; that determine has now fallen to round 120,000, on account 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 Women Excessive has distinguished alumnae and a storied historical past, it’s unclear whether or not these will affect selections the district finally makes about which faculties to shut.
College students say they get worth from Women Excessive that isn’t nearly teachers.
A number of college students are significantly keen on the Massive Sister program. It’s a longstanding Women Excessive custom by which older college students take their youthful friends beneath their wing. Massive Sister helps present each mentor and mentee with an important step of their growth.
Brianni Carter, president of the college’s sophomore class, stated each Central and Women Excessive accepted her. She appreciated the lecturers at each faculties however finally selected Women for an additional purpose: “On the Women’ orientation, there was such a sense of togetherness and group. Like Central, it’s rigorous, however you additionally get the assist you want.”
Women Excessive pupil Mya Torres, 17, stated her mom attended Women Excessive for ninth and tenth grade however needed to depart on account of household points.
When she introduced Mya to orientation, one in every of her mom’s former academics acknowledged her. “That’s the type of place that is,” Torres stated.
Her mom actually needs Torres to have the total, four-year Women Excessive expertise.
Dale Mezzacappa is a senior author for Chalkbeat Philadelphia, the place she covers Ok-12 faculties and early childhood training in Philadelphia. Contact Dale at dmezzacappa@chalkbeat.org.