Crowded around a workshop table, four girls at de Zavala Middle School in Irving puzzled over a Lego machine they had built. As they flashed a purple card in front of a light sensor, nothing happened.

The teacher at the Dallas-area school had emphasized that in the building process, there are no mistakes—only iterations. So the girls dug back into the box of blocks and pulled out an orange card. They held it over the sensor, and the machine kicked into motion.

“Oh! Oh, it reacts differently to different colors,” said sixth grader Sofia Cruz.

In de Zavala’s first year as a choice school focused on science, technology, engineering and math, the school recruited a sixth-grade class with half girls. School leaders hope the girls will stick with STEM fields. In de Zavala’s higher grades — wh

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