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"When kids say science is for boys, that's just what society has told them," said Worthen, who works in the technology field mostly around men. "If I had not learned to interact with men, how could I go into my workplace and encounter them every day?"

More than 200 public schools in the United States have single-sex classes, according to the National Association for Single Sex Public Education, an advocacy group.

They've counted six in North Carolina -- Statesville, Wilson, two in Elizabeth City, and two entire schools in Greensboro (under a special provision) -- but others are out there, including the Carrboro classes.

The N.C. School of Science and Mathematics, a state-run boarding school in Durham, started a computer-focused class for girls last year.

Those schools are trying what Saint Mary's School in Raleigh has done for more than 160 years as a girls' boarding and day school.

Splitting the sexes acknowledges what "educators have known for years," said the head of Saint Mary's, Theo Coonrod. "Boys and girls learn differently. We know that girls respond to more collaborative learning. The boy brain seeks competition."

Advocates of single-sex classrooms, such as Coonrod, say math, science and technical classes are much more attractive to girls when boys aren't around to be an intimidating factor.

So, when do the Saint Mary's girls get to socialize with boys?

"After school and on the weekend, they seem to have no problem finding each other," Coonrod said.

On Tuesday morning, Works circled 22 girls, prepping them for a state-mandated writing test in March. Heads of shoulder-length hair hovered close to notebooks. When it was time for questions, skinny arms went skyward.

This experiment will end sometime before school lets out in June. At that point, Works and her team will look at how grades have changed. They've already started to improve, Works said.

"Just like we thought, they were hiding their strengths," she said of both boys and girls. "But this is just an experiment with 105 kiddos. It's not the wave of the future."

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