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SCHOOL BOARD APPROVES ALL-BOYS SCHOOL MIAMI – The Miami-Dade School Board followed the etiquette of “ladies first” when it approved a school for girls last fall, but it followed up with “one for the boys” at its meeting Wednesday. The planned Young Men’s Preparatory Academy will serve approximately 500 boys beginning in the 2008-2009 school year. The school will open with grades 6-10 and add a grade each subsequent year until grades 6-12 are served. The district will renovate the site that formerly housed Buena Vista Elementary School, 3001 NW Second Avenue. The site will cover approximately 34,000 square feet, with particular attention given to space utilization and furnishings to meet the biological, emotional, and cultural needs of the school’s single gender population. The school’s projected $5 million renovation cost will be funded by the Five-Year Capital Plan for 2005-2009. However, District staff will seek historic preservation funding for all or a portion of the renovation cost. According to research conducted by the National Institutes of Health, studies have shown that the right side of the brain develops more rapidly in males; the left in females. Thus, at an earlier age, boys grasp such things as measuring, perceiving geographical direction, and abstract understanding, while girls master speaking, reading, writing, and listening. A curriculum that does not take these difference into consideration runs the risk of having girls think that they will never be good at geometry and boys who don’t like to read and write. The Young Men’s Preparatory Academy exemplifies the ambitious reform of the District’s secondary schools being spearheaded by Superintendent of Schools Rudolph F. “Rudy” Crew. The reform seeks to raise the rigor of the curriculum in secondary schools and to allow students to apply their learning to career interests by providing them with individualized attention and applied learning opportunities. The concept for the Young Men’s Preparatory Academy is to expand access to this type of educational model as a public choice option for students in Miami-Dade County Public Schools. The School Board approved in its December 14th meeting, the leasing of a 36,000-square-foot building, located at 1150 S.W. First Street, to house the Young Women’s Leadership Academy. ### 05-LJG/158/JAA |
