Aurora’s Marmion Academy tackles a new year, its first as a coed school

A few weeks ago, Hugo Saltijeral saw his daughter participate in her first After-School Formation at Marmion Academy in Aurora.

A tradition at Marmion, the event is sort of like a parade for students involved in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps, or JROTC, program, Saltijeral explained.

At the event, the father of three saw his daughter, Peyton, walk in her uniform for the first time alongside her fellow Cadets — just like he and his two sons had when they attended the high school.

“It was a little overwhelming,” Saltijeral, 47, said.

It was also something he and Peyton never thought would happen — until recently.

Marmion Academy in Aurora, formerly an all-boys school, welcomed girls into its student body for the first time ever at the start of this school year.

It was the culmination of considerable discussion and more than a year of preparation, which included changes to school facilities, the addition of a number of sports teams for girls and more.

Now, several weeks into the new school year, Marmion’s students and school leadership alike have gotten to work. But much has changed.

The Catholic high school has a long history in Aurora, just shy of a century.

And that history is one accustomed to things changing, says the Rev. Joel Rippinger, abbot of Marmion Abbey.

Starting out as a boarding school, Marmion in the 1930s was designated a military academy by the U.S. War Department, with all students enrolled in the Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program, according to the school’s website. It became known as Marmion Military Academy.

The school then weathered location changes, with resident students in 1959 moving to the current facility out on Butterfield Road, while day students remained on its old campus on the corner of North Lake Street and West Illinois Avenue in Aurora. In 1971, all students came to the Butterfield location.

Then, in 1994, students were given the choice to pick between JROTC and a new Leadership Education and Development, or LEAD, program, which prompted the school to return to its original name: Marmion Academy. The school eventually closed its residential program in 2003 due to low enrollment, and it has operated solely as a day school since.

“In retrospect, all those decisions were done with thoughtfulness, a sense of what would be best for the future,” Rippinger said. “As I look back, I think they were the right decisions.”

Then came the next change.

In late 2024, the school announced it would be transitioning to a co-educational model, and welcoming girls starting in the 2026-27 school year.

“We … saw that probably the best thing for maintaining the academic integrity of the school and being able to … sustain our programs, and also our buildings and everything else, was to go coed,” said Rippinger, who has worked at the school in various capacities for about 50 years. He was elected Marmion Abbey’s abbot in 2023.

The decision wasn’t solely enrollment-based, Rippinger said. But the school has seen somewhat of a drop-off in its enrollment in recent years, according to Michael McGrath of Stakeholder Strategies, which does communications for Marmion.

The school’s “sweet spot” in terms of enrollment is about 525 students, McGrath said, which was around where it was at before the COVID-19 pandemic. But enrollment has declined in recent years, with this year’s total sitting at 415 — up from 410 last year.

Of its enrollment this year, 41 are female students, according to numbers provided by the school, including both freshmen and sophomore transfers.

The freshman class sits at 102, including 27 girls, down from 103 the year prior.

In discussing the transition, Rippinger noted that the school has had female teachers for many years, which he calls a “wonderful change” that led to a “better culture.”

“I think the same thing can be said for the student body,” he added.

Some of those involved in the decision would have preferred to stay single-sex, according to Rippinger, but there was consensus more or less from the beginning about the need for change. And, the school saw some alumni who were not entirely on board at first come around to the idea, he said.

The decision prompted a number of changes, like updating the school’s facilities and ensuring there were athletic opportunities for Marmion’s new students.

The school had to create new training rooms, new and updated locker rooms and additional bathrooms. They had to figure out new uniforms for female students, too.

The school also made plans to offer sports for its new female students — swimming, volleyball and cross-country in the fall; basketball and wrestling in the winter; and soccer and track and field in the spring — with plans for more down the line.

About 80% of female students are playing a sport, according to McGrath.

In August, several dozen female Marmion students entered the building for the first time. The students participated in the annual “Clap-In,” during which students are welcomed into the building at the start of the school year.

Rippinger thinks the student body recognized the significance of the moment.

“I think they … saw, ‘OK, this is the new normal. And we’re going to be part of it,’” he said.

Not everything is fully coed, however.

Freshman and sophomore students are taking core classes in single-sex classrooms, but things like JROTC, dual credit courses, language classes and extracurriculars are coed. Once there are upperclassmen girls, the plan would be for classes to be mixed-sex generally, per the school. Retreats and some other things will be kept single-sex, Rippinger explained.

Marmion’s transition also means changes for Rosary College Prep, the nearby Catholic all-girls school in Aurora that will now be the only single-sex school in the area.

Rosary traditionally participated in things like homecoming festivities at Marmion — complete with a football game and dance at the school.

This year, Rosary’s hosting its own homecoming week for the first time, Head of School Amy McMahon said in August. The week’s festivities are set to include a community Mass, powder puff football game and a dance.

Rosary and Marmion also had some crossover in terms of band, theater productions and some upper-level classes, which McGrath indicated will continue, at least for now, for all grades except freshmen.

“We respect very much their single-sex effort,” Rippinger said of Marmion’s relationship with Rosary, “and I think they’ve respected the fact that this is where we were going to go.”

Peyton Saltijeral, 14, recalls hearing the news of Marmion’s planned transition from her father after she got out of volleyball practice and immediately wanting to go.

“I was like, ‘I think this is a sign,’” she recalled.

She’d grown up hearing all about the school, after all.

Not only had her father attended Marmion, but so had Peyton’s two older brothers, whom she described as role models.

“I really get to understand … what it means to be a Cadet, why they love this school,” she said.

Hugo Saltijeral said he’s not a very organized person, but he put “every important date” for his daughter applying to Marmion on his calendar. With his sons, he’d more or less insisted that they attend, he explained.

That’s despite the fact that Saltijeral’s time at Marmion wasn’t always smooth sailing.

Saltijeral, a 1997 graduate, described how, after his first day at the school as part of the military program, he came home and cried and said he didn’t want to go back.

His older brother, however, gave him a talking to, pointing out that it was an important opportunity he had in front of him.

So, he returned and eventually adjusted. Saltijeral currently works as the executive director of Valley Sheltered Workshop in Batavia, which provides job services for adults with disabilities.

And he himself has continued his education, going back to school at Waubonsee Community College at 35.

Saltijeral said Peyton is one of more than a dozen in their extended family to now attend the school.

Not everything has changed since he attended, however. Peyton has told him the work is difficult, and it began on the first day.

“I’m honest with her,” he laughed. “I’m like, ‘Oh, it gets harder.’”

But the transition itself has been easy so far, says Peyton, a freshman. The girls are sticking together, and she was already used to attending a small school.

Most of her classes are single-sex, and it’s been nice to have moments with just girls, she said. She has already joined the volleyball team, hopes to play basketball and soccer, and is part of JROTC, something she thinks means a lot to her dad.

“I’m really happy to do it,” she said. “Just to see him … proud.”

She appreciates the program not just so she can try to best her brothers in terms of how many medals she earns, but also for the chance to challenge herself and work toward different goals.

“Every day, it’s a new opportunity,” she said.

Looking forward, the school plans to do surveys and other efforts to gauge the effectiveness of the model they’ve set up, according to Rippinger.

But he described a change that’s bigger than just allowing females to attend.

“We’ve been re-energized, and we see that this is a good way to start up again,” Rippinger said.

Like with the school’s facilities.

Rippinger explained that, while Marmion already had to make some changes in preparation for welcoming young women into the building full-time, more work needs to be done. A lot of the school’s buildings are older, he said, and in need of being “brought up to standard.”

“It’s vital that we maintain the high standards we’ve established in the past,” Rippinger said, pointing to the area’s competitiveness in terms of both public and private schools. “And that always means going to the next level.”

While the school retains its identity, Rippinger thinks changes like these come with the territory if Marmion is to be successful for the long haul.

“For Benedictines, we’ve been at this for 1,500 years, and we are still doing it because we, we do recognize the need for adaptation and change,” he said. “You can’t stay around … by just doing the same old, same old.”

The Daily Herald’s Dave Oberhelman contributed.

mmorrow@chicagotribune.com