My first two years of high school, in the early ’50s, were spent at an all-boys’ school. I hated it. I finally got myself ejected at the end of my second year and ascended into Nirvana at a suburban public school. I did not take a book out of that building my entire junior and senior year. Why? Girls. They were everywhere. Forget about concentrating in study hall, I couldn’t even concentrate on a baseball.

In the late ’70s I took single care of my two sons while their mother, Jane, who had attended a single-sex secondary school, lived in New York City and did great things. She had a comfortableness about herself and who she was. Would she have been the same way if she had not attended a single-sex school? Who knows? She could tell a raunchy joke with the best of them, and I know she didn’t learn that in high school.

I now have a granddaughter who is nine, and who has a mouth on her like a sailor. A very intelligent sailor. There is much discussion already in the family about where to send her to secondary school. The topic of single-sex versus co-ed comes up a lot. It’s too soon to tell, but it sure is nice having an option.