Priory plans school for boys

With its success running a private, all-girls school for nearly 150 years, the St. Andrew’s Priory School for Girls’ board has approved plans to open an elementary school next fall tailored to the educational needs of young boys.

The St. Andrew’s Preparatory School for Boys will be the only elementary school for boys in the state, and will share the downtown Hono­lulu campus of the girls school founded by Queen Emma in 1867.

School officials say the move comes amid a growing body of research showing that girls and boys learn differently and develop skills at different ages. Those differences, experts say, have contributed to a widening achievement gap between male and female students, with boys lagging on report cards, test scores and college admittance, among other areas.

"Boys are frustrated oftentimes in traditional classrooms," said Headmaster Sandra Theunick, who will oversee both schools. "To have boys in a situation where it’s OK to be a boy and you can still learn and be smart — we want to provide that for them, too, and make learning fun for them."

The school will renovate classrooms in an existing building, where the boys school will start off with kindergarten and first-grade classes before eventually adding capacity through the fifth grade. Core academic instruction will be separate, while girls and boys will share common areas, including dining and athletic facilities — an approach known as single-gender coordinate education.

"We really believe in what Queen Emma founded and the fact that we have a service to perform. We have a mission to help lift up women to become all that they can be, and that’s best accomplished in a single-gender setting," Theunick said in an interview. "At the same time, you can do the same thing for young boys if they’re in a single-gender setting."

The idea surfaced as the board of trustees worked on a new strategic plan, which was unveiled to alumnae, students and families Tuesday at separate events.

"In strategic planning you look at your strengths as much as your challenges, and the more we looked at our strengths, we recognized how good we are at single-gender education with girls," said board Chairwoman Judy Pietsch, citing the school’s college-going rate as one example. (All 38 graduates of the class of 2013 were accepted to college and together earned more than $4 million in merit-based scholarships.)

"We want to be the leader in single-gender education for boys and girls," Pietsch said.

Because the boys school is starting out small, existing faculty initially will be able to handle the added students. The school will hold workshops and other professional development to prepare teachers.

Paul Burgess, who’s been a teacher and coach at the priory since 2009, has been tapped to serve as director of the boys school.

Tuition has not been set for the 2014-15 school year, but will be the same as that for attending Priory’s lower school, where tuition is $15,600 this school year.

The expansion plans come at a time when overall private school enrollment has been on the decline nationally and locally since the economic downturn.

The number of children attending private schools in Hawaii has dropped 8 percent — or by nearly 3,200 students — since the 2007-08 school year.

Enrollment at St. Andrew’s Priory this year is at 330 students in grades kindergarten to 12, down from 353 students last year and 361 the year before, according to figures from the Hawaii Association of Independent Schools.

"We’ve certainly suffered losses, but we’re obviously not alone in that," Theunick said of the enrollment drop. "This was one way to respond to that. We did our strategic planning because it was part of our accreditation cycle and to prepare for our 150th (anniversary), but it was also helping us address a shortfall."

Theunick said the school did not consider a coed model.

"It seems like an obvious solution, but it really was not a solution for us," she said. "We know that there’s a need for the girls to be educated in a setting that empowers them to become everything that they can possibly be. We think that’s true too for young boys."

Saint Louis School in Kaimuki is currently the only all-boys school in Hawaii but does not offer elementary grades. The 6-12 school charges $13,322 in tuition. Damien Memorial School, formerly an all-boys campus, went coed and began accepting girls last fall.

Theunick said the school aims to continue Queen Emma’s legacy of providing access to education for underserved populations.

"She and her husband (King Kame­ha­meha IV) founded ‘Iolani School, which originally was for boys, at a time when only the children of alii or the children of missionaries could go to formal schooling," Theunick said. Five years later "she founded the priory for girls at a time when only girls of alii or missionary children could go to Punahou. So as we looked at the pattern of her life, and we realized there was another underserved group in education, it made perfect sense."

With the expansion, the school system, which is affiliated with the Episcopal Church, will be re-branded as The St. Andrew’s Schools, including the Queen Emma Preschool in Nuu­anu.