Sometimes you can try to do the right thing, but go about it the wrong way. That’s what we believe happened in the recent announcement of the American Civil Liberties Union complaint over Sanford’s same-sex classrooms.

The classes were first offered at Willard School in 2009, when one classroom of girls and one of boys was established. The single-gender classes are offered as an alternative, and parents can choose to have their child in that environment. There are other co-ed sixth-grade classrooms at Willard School as well.

The program was expanded to one female class and one male class of fifth-grade students a year ago, due to its popularity. According to Superintendent of Schools David Theoharides, the co-ed and single-gender classes use the same curriculum, and the students take music, art and physical education together.

The ACLU notified media outlets late in the morning on Monday that they had issued a letter of complaint with the Sanford School District about the single-gender classrooms, saying that they violate the U.S. Constitution and Title IX, but Theoharides said Tuesday morning that he had not yet received the organization’s letter.

The school department had reportedly handed over some informational documents to the ACLU last fall when they became interested in the situation, but didn’t hear back until the organization’s media blitz.

It seems the ACLU put the cart before the horse here, drumming up publicity and causing a hubbub before even notifying the school district of its demands or completing a full investigation into the matter.

Whether one agrees with the philosophy behind same-sex classrooms or not, it’s clear that the ACLU’s approach caused some unnecessary adversity between them and the school.

While we’re inclined to agree with the ACLU that single-gender classrooms are not a good idea, we feel they could have handled the  situation in a more appropriate way. We should have heard about this issue during a school board meeting, with the board addressing the complaint in a public session, but instead the ACLU went straight for the public campaign.

The way to win over the school district would have been to sit down with its leaders, review the district’s single-gender classroom program, and discuss it together.

This adversarial approach is likely to obscure the real issue at hand here, which is whether or not it is illegal, or at least inadvisable, to have single-gender classrooms available as an option for students.

Shenna Bellows, executive director of the ACLU of Maine Foundation, notes in the letter to the district that “federal law and the Constitution require equal educational opportunities for male and female students,” but it doesn’t seem like Sanford is outwardly violating that law. The students are using the same curriculum, so it’s not as though the girls are focusing on home economics while the boys are delving into biology.

We’ve run into the “separate but equal” problem before, however ”“ first with racial segregation and today with the gay marriage/civil union debate. It just doesn’t work. By definition, separate is not equal.

It’s nearly impossible to eradicate gender stereotyping once we get into this type of classroom situation, even if it’s unintentional. Bellows picked out the example of a boys class undertaking an exercise activity and a girls class being given hot chocolate. Obviously, these teachers were doing their best to engage the students and motivate them to learn, but from a distance it’s easier to see that these activities reinforce the idea, however subtly, that girls and boys are markedly different in the activities they enjoy and their learning styles.

The problem is, those assertions are not supported by scientific evidence. A 2011 article in the prestigious journal, Science, cited by the ACLU, stated, “There is no well-designed research showing that single-sex education improves students’ academic performance, but there is evidence that sex segregation increases gender stereotyping and legitimizes institutional sexism.”

The U.S. Supreme Court also held that the single-sex education may not be justified solely to offer an option for parents and students, the ACLU noted.

Students certainly have different learning styles, but it’s not clear that the difference falls along gender lines. Offering different types of instruction in a mixed-gender classroom puts everyone on equal footing.

In fact, it seems simply logical to believe that single-gender classrooms actually do students a disservice. After all, schools are supposed to be preparing students for the real world, and there are very few adult workplaces and community groups in which you’ll find yourself with zero interaction with the opposite sex.

We’ve been pushing diversity in our schools for years now, so it’s clear we want our youth to be prepared to interact with people of all races, religions, cultures, and yes, even the opposite sex. Placing them in a learning environment that excludes the other half of the human race doesn’t seem to serve that end.

We hope the ACLU will change its approach to this issue and address it in a more respectful way. Ultimately, Sanford school leaders should take the time to become more informed about the true impacts of single-gender education, and we hope they will decide to end this segregation.

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Today’s editorial was written by Managing Editor Kristen Schulze Muszynski on behalf of the Journal Tribune Editorial Board. Questions? Comments? Contact Kristen by calling 282-1535, Ext. 322, or via email at kristenm@journaltribune.com.