What happens when you teach boys and girls separately? Westside Elementary School in Spring Hill will find out for itself beginning next fall.

The Hernando County School Board has enthusiastically endorsed Principal Charles Johnson's effort to establish same-gender classrooms at each grade level, in one of the region's first trials of a controversial education theory. It's also done at Belcher Elementary in Clearwater and Melrose Elementary in St. Petersburg. See a past Times story about Belcher here.

Participation at Westside is voluntary, and boys and girls will take their physical education and arts classes together.  "We're not trying to make monks and nuns out of them," principal Johnson said. "This is just for the core academics."

Tom Marshall, Hernando County education reporter