Rule keeps twins together at school

News of a new principal at Walden Lake Elementary School four years ago left Carla Kordek panicky.

She'd heard horror stories about how some schools insisted on placing twins in separate classes. That wasn't an option for her girls, who were heading into kindergarten.

When Emma was home sick from preschool, she'd worry all day about her sister, Nicole. And Nicole couldn't relax knowing Emma wasn't with her.

"It's just a comfort for my girls to see the other, to know she's OK," Kordek said.

That's why Kordek launched a campaign to allow parents - not school administrators - to decide whether to keep multiples in the same class in public schools.

"I just felt that it should be a parent's choice," said Kordek, whose girls will be third-graders in the same class this year. "A parent knows what their child is capable of. It shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all policy."

Her efforts prompted passage of the Florida Twins Law last year. Sponsored by state Sen. Gary Siplin of Orlando and state Rep. Bill Heller of St. Petersburg, the law allows parents of twins and other multiples to request that their children be kept in the same classroom.

The request must come no later than five days before the first day of school. School officials can offer their input and even assign children to separate classrooms if there is evidence of problems, such as behavioral issues. Parents have the right to appeal that decision; during the process, their children remain together.

"Much of the research shows it's not a good thing to separate them," said Heller, who's an uncle to identical twin boys.

About 12 states have a twins law, and at least two more are considering similar legislation, Kordek said.

Before Florida's law, school officials statewide seemed to make such decisions intuitively or for some other reason, Heller said. Parents whose twins couldn't stay together were left with little recourse; some opted to home school, and others took on second jobs to pay for private school.

Most school districts seemed to consider it on a case-by-case situation - which Heller supports.

"Nobody knows the child better than the parent," he said. "Why make a mistake if you can avoid it?"

In Hillsborough, there wasn't a set policy. When Kordek went to enroll her daughters, she sat down first with Principal Dina Wyatt, who listened to Kordek's concerns and agreed to keep the girls together.

"I really had no problem with it," Wyatt said. "As the mother, she probably knows best."

There's never really been an issue at her school, where there are several sets of twins, the principal said. The majority of their parents choose to keep them in separate classes.

School officials supportive

That's what Kim and Bill Kull decided to do last year when their twins, Carson and Ansley, entered kindergarten at Brooker Elementary.

"The first couple of weeks were kind of rough," Kim Kull said.

Her son was more academically ready for school than her daughter, the social butterfly. Although they were assigned different classrooms, they saw each other throughout the day in the cafeteria and on the playground.

"It gave them opportunities to grow," Kull said, "without limiting them."

School officials support the law and a parent's right to choose, but some still find it's better to separate multiples - more so in elementary and middle school than high school, they say.

"I don't think it's a bad idea at all," said Laurie Hodge, a guidance counselor at Durant High School, where the graduating classes of 2007 and 2009 each had eight sets of twins.

"You have to develop as individuals," said the former health science and physical education teacher, who is also a twin.

In her day, twins were always separated for fear they'd grow dependent on each other and withdraw from classmates and teachers. In the same class, they could face being constantly compared to their sibling, said Hodge, 63. And what happens if one child is held back? The other would be devastated.

But she also understands the special bond multiples share.

Making the call is "a fine line," the 40-year educator said. "Are we enabling them if we keep them together or making it worse by putting someone in an overwhelming situation socially?"

Although Durant Principal Pam Bowden respects parents' wishes, she has similar concerns. "You wouldn't want one to be in the other one's shadow," she said.

'Their own pace'

Kim Bearison kept her son and daughter, fraternal twins Cara and Craig, together in preschool, but she and her husband decided to separate them in kindergarten.

"It took away that whole competition of grades and friends and who the teacher liked more," Bearison said. "I wanted them to go at their own pace, be their own person."

The result was the best of both worlds. Now seniors at Durant, the 17-year-olds are somewhat competitive, spurring each other on to place academically in the top 1 percent of their class.

But Cara has set her sights on the University of Florida and a master's degree in business administration; Craig hopes to study medicine at Duke University, the University of Pennsylvania or the University of Florida - but not if Cara gets in, he says jokingly.

Both agree with their parents' decision to keep them apart.

When they shared classes in high school, they usually ended up in trouble, Craig admitted. Sitting in alphabetical order meant they started the year right beside each other, where Craig could needle his sister and share inside jokes. By year's end, the teacher would have the two sitting on opposite sides of the room.

In their younger years, separate classrooms had other benefits, Cara said.

"It was a way for us to branch out. I got to learn things on my own ... and it gave us a chance to make new friends.

"I don't really remember ever feeling, 'I wish my brother was here,'" she said. "We are so close at home."