St. Francis to admit boys for sixth grade

Boys as well as girls will be accepted as sixth-graders next year at St. Francis School in Manoa.

The board of directors of the Catholic school decided yesterday to accelerate its plan to expand into a coed campus after 81 years as an all-girls school.

The decision was made in response to a policy change by the state Department of Education, which will remove the sixth grade from all public elementary schools next year, moving the grade level into middle schools.

The Manoa school now has 430 students in grades six through 12. It traditionally gets applicants for middle and high school classes from surrounding area public schools as well as Catholic elementary schools, said the principal, Sister Joan of Arc Souza.

"Since we've already made the decision to go coed, this will just put our plans in motion sooner," Souza said.

She said a new gymnasium, with a weight room and restrooms for a mixed student population, was already slated to open next year, she said. It will be large enough for ILH basketball and volleyball games.

The school has operated a traditional preschool for children of both genders for years.

This fall it launched a kindergarten class accepting boys and girls. The plan is to add first grade next year and add a new grade level each year until St. Francis becomes a full preschool-through-grade 12 institution in 2011.

Souza said: "A father of a student alerted us to Noelani sixth grade closing. He came in to hint about his son" seeking to place the boy at St. Francis. "We get a significant amount of students from Noelani."

Some parents and alumnae lamented the decision last year to change from an all-girls school. But officials of the school said then that the institution, which operates in the black, needed to respond to current economic circumstances and the demand for private-school placement that exists not just in Catholic families but the wider population.

The principal said the school "has no intention of becoming a large school." It will accept 40 sixth-graders for next year. There will be two sections each in grades 6, 7 and 8.

The school will accept 75 students for each of grades 9 through 12, she said.

The timing of the change allows the school to keep its promise made last year to students already enrolled at St. Francis, that they would graduate in all-girls classes, Souza said.