The Jubilance of Being Co-Ed – 30 Years Later
The Co-Ed’s – 30 years later
The story behind the first VCHS co-ed graduating class
Walking the halls of Valley Catholic High School, just past the backstage door to the auditorium, the walls are lined with class photos of jubilant faces of boys and girls. Each framed photo depicts students who are ready to take on the world because they are equipped with an education from St. Mary of the Valley and Valley Catholic.
If you are relatively new to campus, you may be thinking that the school has always been known as Valley Catholic. However, the school founded by the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon has had a few different names through the years. In 1903, the Sisters opened St. Mary’s Academy as a residential school for boys and girls, complete with care for infants. Two years later, under the direction of Archbishop Christie, it transitioned to an all girls school. St. Mary’s Academy would become known as St. Mary’s Institute and in 1930, the school’s name changed again to St. Mary of the Valley. Through the years and name changes, the Sisters’ school served as a successful and prominent school for girls.
Co-education is a standard at nearly every public and private school nowadays – the one exception being the all girls Catholic high school founded by the Holy Names Sisters in downtown Portland, St. Mary’s Academy. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, private schools in the area, including St. Mary of the Valley, were facing low enrollment and budget shortfalls. One strategic path to survival was to embrace co-education. Otherwise, the alternative was to simply close down.
In 1984, for the first time since 1905, St. Mary of the Valley returned to its co-ed roots and admitted boys to the elementary school. Seven years later, in September of 1991, the first high school-aged boys were welcomed on campus in 86 years and the name St. Mary of the Valley was formally changed to Valley Catholic School.
“If you look back through all of the schools across the country, it is typically boys schools becoming co-ed. It was very rare for an all-girls school to bring boys in,” said Bob Weber, former Valley Catholic School President and current Blanchet Catholic High School President. “It was a bold move at the time on the part of the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon and former St. Mary of the Valley/Valley Catholic Principal Chuck Lee because they had to convince boys to consider attending an all-girls school.”
In an Oregonian article from August 1988, former Principal Chuck Lee was asked if St. Mary of the Valley High School would go co-ed as rumors spread that Jesuit High School, an all boys institution, was considering admitting girls. Lee was quoted as saying, “St. Mary’s High School won’t go coeducational.”
While Chuck Lee was confident in his answer that St. Mary of the Valley High School would remain an all-girls school at the time, the Sisters were already looking into going co-ed and considering how they could be successful at the high school level. At the time, the elementary and middle schools had already been welcoming boys back onto the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon Campus for nearly four years. Instead of going co-ed all at once as some schools did, the Sisters decided to integrate boys into the elementary and middle schools one grade at a time. Doing this ensured that it would not shock the girls to see several boys on their campus and in their classrooms all at once. However, this meant that boys who completed middle school with the Sisters had to find another option because they could not go to St. Mary of the Valley High School.
The Sisters looked for successful all-girls schools that had gone co-ed and found only three in the nation. “We learned in our research that in order for us to go co-ed and be successful, we would have to do three big things – change our name, change our image, and do away with the uniform,” said Sr. Krista Von Borstel, SSMO Vicar General-elect. “The biggest challenge was changing our name because it meant a lot to us, but we were faced with doing these things or going out of business. We decided to do everything the study recommended. I am glad we did because we are here today to tell the story.”
In January 1990, St. Mary of the Valley announced that the high school would be making changes. They would be going co-ed, ditching the uniforms and changing their name from St. Mary of the Valley to Valley Catholic for the start of the 1991 school year. Rather than admitting boys all at once to the high school, the Sisters followed the approach they took with the elementary and middle schools by introducing boys one grade level at a time. The boys who entered in the fall of 1991 would eventually represent Valley Catholic High School’s first co-ed graduating class – The Class of 1995.
“I remember being in chemistry class junior year and there was an announcement through the loudspeaker. That is when we found out that we were going co-ed and they were going to change the name of the school to Valley Catholic. I think they told us we weren’t going to have uniforms anymore in the same announcement,” said Jennifer Williamson ‘92. “It was kind of a dark day for us because we realized our school – the school we were going to be the senior class of – was going to be a lot different.”
There was concern from the girls who were attending St. Mary of the Valley as the high school transitioned to co-ed. They were worried they would not be able to be themselves or take the risks they were able to once the high school went co-ed. When the first boys arrived on campus, the current SMV girls soon realized that the boys were not who they envisioned them to be.
“We expected all these tall seventeen year old boys walking through the halls and the young boys that arrived were small and innocent,” said Thrusie Maurseth ‘92.
When the first day of school came around in September 1991, there were local TV news crews on scene at Valley Catholic to document the first boys entering the new co-ed high school. However, the freshman boys were more concerned about finding their lockers and getting their class schedules.
“There were lots of girls and a few boys so we had to stick together. Some girls liked us, some girls didn’t, but in the end the senior class, who opposed us at the beginning, warmed up to us. We started singing in the choir, we started moving boxes, we started doing a lot of the manual labor that they used to have to do,” said Fr. Jeff Meeuwsen ‘95.
While the female students may have grumbled at the thought of having boys in their high school, they quickly welcomed the boys into the Valley Catholic community and treated them as they would treat any other new class. It also helped that the 16 boys who arrived on campus wanted to be a part of the Valley Catholic community. They quickly got involved by singing in choir, playing in the orchestra and participating in student government. The girls also learned that going co-ed provided new opportunities in extracurricular activities, such as theater. Female students no longer had to play male roles in plays or recruit boys from other schools to fill those roles.
“We were so accepted into the high school, it was never an us against them kind of thing,” said Justin Brandon ‘95. “This school is so special because everyone is a part of it and there weren’t cliques or areas where you were not included. Everyone was invited to be a part of something. It was such a small, tight knit community and I think that really played into what an amazing experience I had here.”
For the boys who were a part of that inaugural co-ed class and the ones who soon followed, it was hard to imagine that Valley Catholic would one day have enough boys to field a football team, much less fathom winning one OSAA Cup Championship (the Oregonian Cup at the time), let alone eight of the prestigious titles.
As the 34 boys of the Class of 2025 prepare to walk the graduation stage this June, it is important to remember the 16 boys that set the stage for them 30 years ago. The boys who started new sports programs, where in that first year of being co-ed was only able to field one freshman basketball team – compared to the five boys teams that take the court today. There are also the boys who helped start the baseball team in 1994 and those who helped the theater department put on more intricate plays. The boys and their parents who said “yes” to attending the school the Sisters founded helped pave the way to make Valley Catholic School the integral part of the Sisters of St. Mary of Oregon community that it is today.
“I think 30 years later we all see the importance of the role we played a lot clearer than we did when we were teenagers. It is pretty phenomenal and I am full of pride to be able to say this is something we were a part of because it was a big change for the entire campus,” said Krista Gram ‘95, Valley Catholic High School Dean of Students.
“All of the things that came after that, to be able to say we helped, even though we may not have been aware at the moment, we helped spur these big changes. We helped look at things a little differently all because we had boys and girls in our class.”
Happy 30th Reunion to the first co-ed class at Valley Catholic High School – The Class of 1995.
