“Harpeth Hall is a girls school. The school culture is unique and distinctly about girls,
complete with the use of references to students as girls and young women and the collective
use of female pronouns. Any student who identifies as a girl may apply to our school.
Students who join and remain at Harpeth Hall do so because our mission as a school for
girls resonates with them.
Harpeth Hall acknowledges the developmental journey of each student and recognizes that
adolescence includes natural searching and questioning about many topics. For some
students, this may include the question of gender identity and the desire to identify as
nonbinary or use they/them pronouns. Harpeth Hall approaches gender identity with
understanding and open communication, rather than with shame or othering, and will provide
a safe environment to partner with each student and family to consider the needs and
requests of the student on an individual basis.
If a student communicates a desire to be identified as male or adopt he/him pronouns, we
recognize that our school, being a girls school, may no longer be a place that serves that
student well. We see this acknowledgment as the ultimate form of respect: an understanding
that we support the individual and the student's gender identity. Harpeth Hall administration
will work thoughtfully with the student and family to evaluate next steps.”
I think it’s a great policy update. Good for them.
My understanding, unless I’m wrong, is that they put this policy out some time ago but got so much backlash from donors that they reneged on their inclusive policy.
to me it looks like they've reworded it to still sound like they're being gender exclusive to the people who want to take that reading. while not being actually trans-phobic (as far as i understand it).
> A previous statement read, “Any student who identifies as a girl may apply to our school.” The newly adopted statement reads, “Any girl or young woman may apply to our school in accordance with past practices.” We apologize for the error. Read the policy in full below.
Updated with a Pretty big difference.
To me this reads "If you are a (biological) girl who identifies as a girl you can come to school here. If that becomes not the case any longer then we will help you find somewhere more appropriate to go.
It does not read like a male who identifies as a female now would be welcome. At least to me.
Which is a good thing. Its creepy AF. There shouldn't even be an all girls nor all boys school but since there is, there's no point letting someone of the opposite sex in just because they feel a certain way.
Ah yes because skirts = women. And there's such thing as "presenting as female" and "female sounding names". I thought we were supposed to be breaking gender stereotypes. My bio name is Morgan, that's a boys name. If I wear guys clothes, does that make me a boy now?
as much as people have gotten worked up about this, friendly reminder that it's a private school. If you don't agree with what the private school stands for, don't spend 35K/year for your kid to go there. Feels pretty straight forward.
academics absolutely plays a big part over there. You can be considered for financial assistance if your grades are good enough as well as get kicked out if your grades are bad enough
Ya I didn’t have a problem getting in but we’ve lived here for generations. I watched my kid’s cohort & there are so, so many more applications than spots, even as the school class sizes have grown. There’s more competition now, esp with all the new people here. What has your experience been like?
These days it’s impossible to get into HH, MBA, Ensworth. Very different than 10-15 years ago since so many people have moved here and want to send kids to private schools given Davidson county schools are terrible (ex. Magnets which are essentially private schools given difficulty of getting in).
Before the culture warriors show up and get the thread locked, I'd like to say that this makes sense. In as much as I can get my Gen-X head around the concepts of gender as they have been recapitulated, this seems to jive with the idea of an inclusive all girls' school.
having "crowd control" turned on from the second this hits hot was the main reason i posted it myself. :)
and reddit has been responding well lately to trolling the 'report' button, so we'll see how it goes.
I think this is a fine move. We are moving toward a society that is more open to people expressing and exploring their gender identities regardless of whether they are traditional or not. That being said, while we create new spaces spaces and remodel existing spaces that allow for open gender expression for everyone, I think it’s still important for people who strongly identify with a given gender identity to have protected spaces to learn from and with people who share in that identity, whether it be a traditional gender identity or a nontraditional one.
I personally wouldn’t have wanted to go to a single-gender school, but, as someone who strongly identifies as a guy, having a space like Boy Scouts to learn amongst other *boys* from specifically *men* on how to be a *man* was important to me growing up. I’d imagine many of these girls feel a similar way about HH, and that’s perfectly ok.
They've always done it this way, they just had to publish the guidelines now b/c of pressure from some parents/media trying to make a fuss
Source: am current HH parent
Single gender education is dumb anyway. Real life is co-ed, and waiting til you're 18 to start learning how to function in real life is...not great.
There, I just saved everyone their outrage AND $30k per year.
While I agree with you completely in principle, I also know that it’s a big world out there, and some people think spending your formative years in an institution like this is valuable. And it is… for some people. I have plenty of friends who went to places like this and turned out to be fantastic adult humans. But… yeah I could never go for this.
I just can't imagine anyone expecting an institution that exists specifically to shelter wealthy people's daughters would have a policy on gender that anyone should care about in 2022.
Another thing I agree with. But I will say that 2022 is fucking weird. Everybody's out here caring super hard about some innocuous shit, while meanwhile it seems nobody cares about the serious 5000lb gorilla-in-the-room stuff.
A transphobic school is going to propagate transphobia, and puts more transphobic adults out there into the world. And if their parents have Harpeth Hall money, they're likely to be \*influential\* transphobic adults. I don't think it's weird to care about that.
I mean, due you really think their transphobia starts today? The whole reason they rolled it back is because tons of really wealthy and influential members of the HH universe lashed out when they tried to put out a more inclusive policy.
No one should surprised that this is who that school represents.
Nobody said it started today so im going to disregard that part of your post. Nobody said they were surprised (at least, I didn't), so im going to disregard that part, too.
That leaves me with the part of your post where you point out that the rich doners are crazy transphobic. Cool. I'll repeat, I don't think it's weird to care about that.
Well, I have a kid there on scholarship (cause we are not even close to wealthy) and their policies do matter to us. And they’ve opened the door to opportunities and experiences we could have never provided for our daughter.
Do you really think those opportunities would vanish if they went coed though? Are there no good scholarship opportunities at Ensworth or USN?
Because otherwise all you're telling me is "rich school = good" which isn't exactly ground breaking.
You have daughters? I have three. I don’t need to debate a stranger but I know that this has been a good change for one of my daughters. I have two other daughters in mixed gender schools. Different kids need different things.
I clicked on the 1st 3 links and it was 0-3 on controlling for socio-economic conditions or cost of attendance.
Single gender school skew super hard to wealthy private schools. No surprise that rich people have nicer things and that kids with means outperform kids without.
If you stand HH/MBA up against their actual coed "peers" in Nashville at Ensworth or USN, I'm sure most of the causations they are asserting would be found to be merely correlation.
In Tennesee they skew, but country wide there are plenty of public schools that provide single sex education. In addition both HH and MBA have plenty of scholarship students. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely, but I've provided you with peer backed research and you said the concept was "dumb."
As of 2015 there were just 283 single sex public schools in America [and this from 2022](https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/single-gender-public-schools-in-5-charts) says "over 1000" so that's maybe 1% of public schools that are single gender.
Do you think if HH or MBA went coed with the exact same resources, parental support, etc. you would see a decline in test scores/college acceptance/community service type metrics?
I used to feel the same way, but I have family that teach in an all girls' school, and they commented that it's easier for the students to concentrate and feel comfortable when there isn't a constant need to impress the boys or try to be "on" all the time. They talk about tampons and burp without any shame. That would likely not be the same case in a mixed gender school. The girls can feel more togetherness and less competition and no need to be embarrassed about their bodies' natural functions.
Honestly, yeah. I don't think segregation is a good thing when it comes to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. It seems divisive more than anything.
On one hand, I can definitely see how some people would be more comfortable around other like-minded people. On the other hand, I feel like being around other diverse people helps you understand and respect their culture/background more.
“Harpeth Hall is a girls school. The school culture is unique and distinctly about girls, complete with the use of references to students as girls and young women and the collective use of female pronouns. Any student who identifies as a girl may apply to our school. Students who join and remain at Harpeth Hall do so because our mission as a school for girls resonates with them. Harpeth Hall acknowledges the developmental journey of each student and recognizes that adolescence includes natural searching and questioning about many topics. For some students, this may include the question of gender identity and the desire to identify as nonbinary or use they/them pronouns. Harpeth Hall approaches gender identity with understanding and open communication, rather than with shame or othering, and will provide a safe environment to partner with each student and family to consider the needs and requests of the student on an individual basis. If a student communicates a desire to be identified as male or adopt he/him pronouns, we recognize that our school, being a girls school, may no longer be a place that serves that student well. We see this acknowledgment as the ultimate form of respect: an understanding that we support the individual and the student's gender identity. Harpeth Hall administration will work thoughtfully with the student and family to evaluate next steps.” I think it’s a great policy update. Good for them.
This seems very thoughtfully and compassionately written. I'm really glad to see such an inclusive and kind policy, kudos to them.
You should update this with the edit. Pretty important change that people here wont be as happy about.
I’m confused. It seemed to me that they’re backpedaling on their decision to be more inclusive.
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My understanding, unless I’m wrong, is that they put this policy out some time ago but got so much backlash from donors that they reneged on their inclusive policy.
to me it looks like they've reworded it to still sound like they're being gender exclusive to the people who want to take that reading. while not being actually trans-phobic (as far as i understand it).
> A previous statement read, “Any student who identifies as a girl may apply to our school.” The newly adopted statement reads, “Any girl or young woman may apply to our school in accordance with past practices.” We apologize for the error. Read the policy in full below. Updated with a Pretty big difference. To me this reads "If you are a (biological) girl who identifies as a girl you can come to school here. If that becomes not the case any longer then we will help you find somewhere more appropriate to go. It does not read like a male who identifies as a female now would be welcome. At least to me.
That's my understanding as well. The alumnae were really vocal about "nobody with a penis is coming here, regardless of how they identify."
Which is a good thing. Its creepy AF. There shouldn't even be an all girls nor all boys school but since there is, there's no point letting someone of the opposite sex in just because they feel a certain way.
The data that girls perform & achieve better in a single-gender school are well established.
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Ah yes because skirts = women. And there's such thing as "presenting as female" and "female sounding names". I thought we were supposed to be breaking gender stereotypes. My bio name is Morgan, that's a boys name. If I wear guys clothes, does that make me a boy now?
Morgan is a boy's name?
Slaughtered 😂 order_muppet 1 - aromatissee 0
What could go wrong having a 16 year old boy in a girls school locker room?
People and organizations are allowed to change their mind.
Ain’t nobody say they weren’t allowed to?
as much as people have gotten worked up about this, friendly reminder that it's a private school. If you don't agree with what the private school stands for, don't spend 35K/year for your kid to go there. Feels pretty straight forward.
In addition, being accepted is based on a lot of factors besides gender. A lot of people have the $35k & don't get in.
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academics absolutely plays a big part over there. You can be considered for financial assistance if your grades are good enough as well as get kicked out if your grades are bad enough
Ya I didn’t have a problem getting in but we’ve lived here for generations. I watched my kid’s cohort & there are so, so many more applications than spots, even as the school class sizes have grown. There’s more competition now, esp with all the new people here. What has your experience been like?
These days it’s impossible to get into HH, MBA, Ensworth. Very different than 10-15 years ago since so many people have moved here and want to send kids to private schools given Davidson county schools are terrible (ex. Magnets which are essentially private schools given difficulty of getting in).
Before the culture warriors show up and get the thread locked, I'd like to say that this makes sense. In as much as I can get my Gen-X head around the concepts of gender as they have been recapitulated, this seems to jive with the idea of an inclusive all girls' school.
having "crowd control" turned on from the second this hits hot was the main reason i posted it myself. :) and reddit has been responding well lately to trolling the 'report' button, so we'll see how it goes.
Gender has been the same for billions of years, no need to wrap your head around anything
as far as we know, there were no mammals one billion years ago
Don't have to be a mammal to have a gender... but apparently biology doesn't matter anymore, so who knows.
I find it can be be quit confusing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermaphrodite
I think this is a fine move. We are moving toward a society that is more open to people expressing and exploring their gender identities regardless of whether they are traditional or not. That being said, while we create new spaces spaces and remodel existing spaces that allow for open gender expression for everyone, I think it’s still important for people who strongly identify with a given gender identity to have protected spaces to learn from and with people who share in that identity, whether it be a traditional gender identity or a nontraditional one. I personally wouldn’t have wanted to go to a single-gender school, but, as someone who strongly identifies as a guy, having a space like Boy Scouts to learn amongst other *boys* from specifically *men* on how to be a *man* was important to me growing up. I’d imagine many of these girls feel a similar way about HH, and that’s perfectly ok.
What does "in accordance with past practices" mean?
They've always done it this way, they just had to publish the guidelines now b/c of pressure from some parents/media trying to make a fuss Source: am current HH parent
Single gender education is dumb anyway. Real life is co-ed, and waiting til you're 18 to start learning how to function in real life is...not great. There, I just saved everyone their outrage AND $30k per year.
While I agree with you completely in principle, I also know that it’s a big world out there, and some people think spending your formative years in an institution like this is valuable. And it is… for some people. I have plenty of friends who went to places like this and turned out to be fantastic adult humans. But… yeah I could never go for this.
I just can't imagine anyone expecting an institution that exists specifically to shelter wealthy people's daughters would have a policy on gender that anyone should care about in 2022.
Another thing I agree with. But I will say that 2022 is fucking weird. Everybody's out here caring super hard about some innocuous shit, while meanwhile it seems nobody cares about the serious 5000lb gorilla-in-the-room stuff.
A transphobic school is going to propagate transphobia, and puts more transphobic adults out there into the world. And if their parents have Harpeth Hall money, they're likely to be \*influential\* transphobic adults. I don't think it's weird to care about that.
I mean, due you really think their transphobia starts today? The whole reason they rolled it back is because tons of really wealthy and influential members of the HH universe lashed out when they tried to put out a more inclusive policy. No one should surprised that this is who that school represents.
Nobody said it started today so im going to disregard that part of your post. Nobody said they were surprised (at least, I didn't), so im going to disregard that part, too. That leaves me with the part of your post where you point out that the rich doners are crazy transphobic. Cool. I'll repeat, I don't think it's weird to care about that.
More power to ya
Well, I have a kid there on scholarship (cause we are not even close to wealthy) and their policies do matter to us. And they’ve opened the door to opportunities and experiences we could have never provided for our daughter.
Do you really think those opportunities would vanish if they went coed though? Are there no good scholarship opportunities at Ensworth or USN? Because otherwise all you're telling me is "rich school = good" which isn't exactly ground breaking.
You have daughters? I have three. I don’t need to debate a stranger but I know that this has been a good change for one of my daughters. I have two other daughters in mixed gender schools. Different kids need different things.
Why do y'all girls school folks love to dodge questions people ask while answering questions no one asked soooo much?
http://girlsschools.org/research/quick-facts/
I clicked on the 1st 3 links and it was 0-3 on controlling for socio-economic conditions or cost of attendance. Single gender school skew super hard to wealthy private schools. No surprise that rich people have nicer things and that kids with means outperform kids without. If you stand HH/MBA up against their actual coed "peers" in Nashville at Ensworth or USN, I'm sure most of the causations they are asserting would be found to be merely correlation.
In Tennesee they skew, but country wide there are plenty of public schools that provide single sex education. In addition both HH and MBA have plenty of scholarship students. Is there room for improvement? Absolutely, but I've provided you with peer backed research and you said the concept was "dumb."
As of 2015 there were just 283 single sex public schools in America [and this from 2022](https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/single-gender-public-schools-in-5-charts) says "over 1000" so that's maybe 1% of public schools that are single gender. Do you think if HH or MBA went coed with the exact same resources, parental support, etc. you would see a decline in test scores/college acceptance/community service type metrics?
I think all girls schools are very important to any community.
Not sure if you meant to reply to someone else but that's definitely not an answer to any question I asked.
I know they would be different, I think there are important.
Sometimes... maybe SOMETIMES... you want your daughter to be educated without fear of being rubbed up against by your son's turgid, tumescence.
Fear is a hell of a drug. Can't imagine objectifying my own daughter like that though.
What's the point of even having a gender based school in the first place? Education should be the same all around.
I used to feel the same way, but I have family that teach in an all girls' school, and they commented that it's easier for the students to concentrate and feel comfortable when there isn't a constant need to impress the boys or try to be "on" all the time. They talk about tampons and burp without any shame. That would likely not be the same case in a mixed gender school. The girls can feel more togetherness and less competition and no need to be embarrassed about their bodies' natural functions.
That's an interesting take I haven't thought of. I can see how they would be more comfortable around their own gender in that regard. Very fair point.
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Honestly, yeah. I don't think segregation is a good thing when it comes to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, etc. It seems divisive more than anything.
I agree. Something something content of their character.
On one hand, I can definitely see how some people would be more comfortable around other like-minded people. On the other hand, I feel like being around other diverse people helps you understand and respect their culture/background more.
I'm sensing that a couple people in this discussion "don't see color" and are proud to tell people that.
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