Damien Memorial School, an all-boys school for nearly 50 years, will start accepting girls next fall in an effort to broaden its reach and boost enrollment.

The surprise announcement Friday provoked mixed feelings among students, faculty and alumni, who said they value the sense of brotherhood at the Catholic school but understand the need to bring more students onto its Kalihi campus, where enrollment has dropped by a third in recent years.

"I think there will be some people saying, ‘Aw shucks, you’re changing tradition,’ but times change," Damien President Bernard Ho said. "We strongly feel we have to look at today and more to the future. We need to expand our reach and offer this quality education to an even greater part of our Damien ohana."

"When I look at the success of coed high schools in general, especially in Hawaii, it’s hard to argue that there is a downside to mixing the boys and girls," added Ho, the first layman to serve as president of Damien.

The school, which has 374 boys in grades 6 to 12, will accept female students in grades 6 to 9 in the fall of 2012, then integrate one high school grade at a time until the entire campus is coed in the fall of 2015.

The recession has hit the campus on Houghtailing Street hard, along with other private schools, some of which have had to shut down. Damien expanded to include sixth-graders this year, but enrollment still fell from 408 students last year, according to data kept by the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools. The student body has shrunk steadily since 2007-08 when Damien had 590 students. Tuition ranges from $8,625 to $10,375, and about half of its students receive financial aid.

Expanding to include girls is "something that we’ve been asked about and have been considering for some time," Ho said. "We have a lot of Catholic elementary schools, and this will allow girls to come here. Otherwise, we split up family members or we lose them when they go to a coed school."

The move will leave two major Catholic schools in Honolulu that are single-sex: Saint Louis School for boys and Sacred Hearts Academy for girls, both on Waialae Avenue in Kaimuki. Saint Louis President Walter Kirimitsu affirmed Friday that his school remains committed to single-gender education. In 2006, Saint Francis School in Manoa gradually began accepting boys, and this year has its highest enrollment ever with 498 students, including its last all-girls graduating class.

Damien’s decision to go coed surprised many alumni, including entertainer Frank De Lima, one of its earliest students after the campus opened in 1962.

"When your alma mater has been an all-boys school all these years, it’s kind of strange to hear that it’s going coed," said De Lima, who graduated in 1967. "I think with the way the financial situation is and the economy that the writing was on the wall. They’ve got to do what they have to do in this day and age."

English teacher Phil Higa, a 1998 alumnus who joined the faculty at Damien in 2002, could see pros and cons to the latest change planned at the school where he’s spent so much of his life.

"I think that as an alum I’m a little disappointed," Higa said. "But as an employee I understand the reasoning behind it. In the last 10 years, small schools have had trouble. I think we may have to think outside of the box."

The proposed expansion to coeducation dovetails well with Damien’s plan for major campus improvements through a $12 million capital campaign, seeded with a $5 million donation from the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation. Plans call for a new multipurpose athletic facility, a new music room and new library with classrooms for research and technology. The football field will be reoriented and reconditioned, with artificial turf replacing the grass and dirt.

"This does allow us to make expansions to the campus that will envelop the female population," said alumnus Greg Sitar, a member of its board of directors and a senior vice president at First Hawaiian Bank. "We look forward to the ongoing campaign to raise funds. The result, in three or four years, will be a wonderful campus. It’s going to be a gem in Kalihi."

Damien’s student body president, Kendrick Go, welcomed the change, even though it will come after he graduates. "I was actually sort of happy that the administration chose to open it for girls," said Go, a senior. "I completely understand why they are doing it." At the same time, he added, "it’s going to lose that all-male camaraderie that Damien is known for."

Picking up her son after school Friday, parent Carla Jacobs was surprised and sorry to hear about the shift to coeducation.

"I actually prefer it all boys," she said. "Some students have better studying habits when it’s the same sex. That’s one of the reasons why we have our child at Damien. They don’t have outside interference and distractions. Academically it’s a wonderful school. Damien gave my son discipline and respect for others. I don’t know if that will be lost."

Dean of Students Rudy Alejo said the school has gone through many changes over the years. At one time the majority of its teachers were members of a religious order, while now the majority are lay people. It added seventh and eighth grades in 2004. Next year it will welcome female students.

"I think it’s rather exciting," Alejo said. "When Saint Damien had his mission on Molokai, women played a great role. We feel the same way, that women are going to make a very positive impact on our school."

Still, accommodating the new student body will require some adjustment, observed John Mosier, a senior.

"The school’s motto is going to have to change," he said with a wry smile. "Our motto is ‘Viriliter age.’ That’s means ‘Act manfully.’"