VENTURA : Advocate of All-Girl Math Classes to Leave

Christine Mikles, a Ventura High School teacher who has become a national spokeswoman for all-girl math classes, will leave the district at the end of the school year to move to Idaho.

Mikles said she is moving with her husband, Scott, who is relocating his contracting business to the small but booming town of Coeur d’Alene.

Now in her 10th year at Ventura High, Mikles, 44, won national attention last year when she began teaching two all-girl Algebra II classes at the school.

The attention led to her winning a $9,800 fellowship from the American Assn. of University Women.

And in August, a New Hampshire school district that is considering establishing single-sex math courses flew Mikles in to share her expertise.

Citing studies showing a dearth of female students pursuing higher-level math, Mikles and some like-minded educators around the country say that girls in sex-segregated math courses get more attention from teachers and feel less intimidated by boys.

Although Mikles’ program at Ventura High drew some criticism, school officials say it is apparently succeeding.

In the past, only about 28 girls at the school would move on each year from Algebra II to trigonometry. This year, there are 51, some of them girls who took one of Mikles’ all-female algebra classes.

Ventura High has expanded its girls-only courses and now offers one such class each in Algebra II, geometry and trigonometry, taught by three different teachers. The math department will continue the program after Mikles leaves.

Mikles said she plans to continue teaching after she moves. But she said she wonders if the school district that hires her will be as receptive as Ventura to all-female classes. That, she said, is “the big question.”