Gym at Parker has a gender problem. Classes tend to be separated by gender and grade, with underclassmen girls enrolling in one set of classes, while upperclassmen boys enroll in another.

The cycle of gender segregation in gym starts when incoming freshmen register for classes. Along with checking off all the appropriate boxes for required classes and electives, students are asked to list three gym classes in order of preference. The school assumes that students will request the classes they desire the most, but with gym this isn’t the case. Rising freshmen hear about this segregation from older friends and can see the gender separation in the courses as they walk by the school’s gymnasiums.

It isn’t random sports that get dominated by upperclassmen boys either–it’s a specific type. It’s classes like Floor Hockey & Team Sports, classes that mimic popular professional sports, that boys dominate. The ones that the girls dominate, on the other hand, are activities that are more traditionally feminine, like yoga or step aerobics.

I don’t think the problem is that girls don’t want to play popular professional sports–it’s that they don’t want to play any sport with only upperclassmen boys. They know that certain classes are requested by lots of upperclassmen boys and, since upperclassmen get preference during course registration, only a few underclassmen will get into them.

When registering for classes as a rising freshman, one of my main fears was that I would be assigned to a gym classes full of senior boys. I loved playing basketball, but I knew the gym would lack girls my age. So instead, I made sure to sign up for classes that I had seen filled with girls before, checking off Yoga and Step Aerobics as many times as possible on my registration form.

While we may like to imagine that underclassmen girls at Parker will feel comfortable in classes with anyone from the high school, the reality is that they do not. Classes full of upperclassmen are, for the most part, intimidating to younger students. Add in a sports factor, where sexism lurks beneath the surface, and girls will avoid joining at any cost, even if it means relegating themselves to less popular gym classes such as interval training.

It’s a never-ending cycle, or at least it will be unless we do something about it. It’s not a freshman’s responsibility to overcome their fear of being totally alone, surrounded by towering seniors. Freshmen are always a little afraid of the older kids, and that fear isn’t going to go away no matter how hard we ignore it.

Instead, the school needs to put more thought into how it enrolls students in gym. In particular, when students are registering for classes, more focus should be put on gym. The school should pay attention to what types of students are being put in what types of classes and add a healthy mix of age ranges and genders to each course. This could be done by the registrar, who already does registration for all classes in the high school.

Obviously, the registrar might not get an equal number of students from each group applying for any one class. However, I believe that if students are informed that gym classes will contain a certain mix of students before registration occurs, the course requests will more accurately reflect what classes students actually desire.

Gym may not be the most obvious place to disrupt toxic gender dynamics, but it is an important place nonetheless. Making this simple change to the registration process may not be huge, but it will be one of many important steps that our school could take in order to become a more welcoming, inclusive environment.