Daily Herald opinion: Hopeful new beginnings: As Marmion goes coed, there’s still room for single-sex education opportunities

When single-sex private high schools make the dramatic decision to go coed — usually after decades of being all-girl or all-boy — it is largely because they need to boost enrollment and shore up their finances to see the school into the next decades and beyond.

Schools that go coed are usually boys’ schools, which are frequently older and better funded than all-girls schools. And while those former boys schools thrive with additional students, girls schools can be left struggling to remain viable.

The latest member of the coed club is Marmion Academy in Aurora, a distinguished male-only high school founded in 1933 by the Benedictine monks of St. Meinrad Abbey out of the former Fox Valley Catholic High School for Boys in Aurora. In Fall 2026 Marmion will open to girls for the first time, and at least 80 of them have already pledged to attend as freshmen or sophomores.

Knowing that 80 7th and 8th grade girls are eager to be the first coeds in Marmion’s history is exciting. Knowing that Marmion has a bright future is gratifying. What is unclear, perhaps, are the unintended consequences this change might have on other high schools in the area, particularly Rosary College Prep, the all-girls Catholic high school in Aurora. Rosary, which was opened in 1962 by the Dominican Sisters of Springfield and remains under their direction, has excellent academic credentials, a balanced budget, a steady annual enrollment of 200-215 students, and a college placement rate of 100%.

What we’re hoping is that nothing Marmion Academy does will get in the way of that. Whether those initial 80 girl students would have gone to Rosary — or Aurora Central Catholic or public school — is too hard to predict, says Rosary Head of School Amy McMahon. As the only all-girls school in the Rockford Diocese, the Dominican Sisters are determined that Rosary will remain all-girls. Moreover, Rosary has been planning for several years to widen its appeal — adding engineering to its curriculum, for example.

Single-sex education is waning in popularity nationwide, as today’s kids prefer a coeducational high school experience. Overall, enrollment in Catholic high schools has been dropping: Data from the National Center for Education Statistics says that U.S. enrollment in Catholic secondary schools was just over 1 million in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but fell to only half that in 2022-23.

Still, single-sex schools have undeniable benefits. They recognize that boys and girls in their teenage years learn differently and put that into practice. We know that both sexes are more comfortable without the social pressure brought to bear in a coed school, but research tells us more: That boys like competitive learning environments more than girls do, for example; and that girls are more receptive to learning through classroom lectures. Boys see better in natural light, so outdoor classes skew favorably toward them. And so on.

Marmion, meanwhile, isn’t jettisoning what has made the school unique: Under its new coed plan, freshmen and sophomores will take core subject classes in single-sex classrooms. Not until the students are older, as juniors and seniors, will they learn in coed classrooms.

Longtime suburbanites will remember Sacred Heart of Mary High School in Rolling Meadows, an all-girl school which was absorbed into the all-boy Saint Viator High School in Arlington Heights in 1987. Graduates of Sacred Heart were heartbroken when their school closed, but enrollment had dropped significantly, especially after the sisters from the Religious of the Sacred Heart left in 1971. Therefore, some found the merger with Saint Viator heartening, if only so girls in the Northwest suburbs would still have access to a Catholic education. The Saint Viator Sacred Heart of Mary Alumni Association has worked hard to keep the memory of Sacred Heart alive, and the Catholic tradition and commitment to service remains strong.

A different story played out in South Bend, when in 1972 the University of Notre Dame went coed and people feared for the future of Saint Mary’s College, its all-women partner school. But instead of merging, Saint Mary’s cut ties with Notre Dame and doubled down on remaining independent and strengthening its curriculum for women. The result: Today, Saint Mary’s is as strong as ever.

That is how Rosary College Prep sees itself, too. What we want for both Marmion Academy and Rosary is equal success as they embark on new beginnings. Both can still be top-notch institutions and provide local girls — and boys — with profitable and memorable educations.