Crespi Is Celebrating 40th Year as All-Boys School

Every so often, rumors circulate around Crespi Carmelite High School that the San Fernando Valley’s only Catholic boys school is going coed.

“Not going to happen,” said Father John Knoernschild, school president.

At an 11 a.m. Mass and barbecue today, the school’s staff, students, parents and alumni say they’re celebrating not only Crespi’s 40th anniversary but also its commitment to single-sex education.

Boys’ schools in Los Angeles are getting scarcer, officials say, a trend that started about 20 years ago when institutions such as Chaminade College Preparatory High School in West Hills accepted girls to include more of the community.

More than 50 private, parochial and archdiocesan high schools serve about 30,470 students within the Los Angeles Archdiocese. Ten of the schools are boys-only.

“We’re meeting a need today that doesn’t exist in a lot of places,” said Father Dominic Savino, a licensed psychotherapist who counsels Crespi’s 485 ninth- through 12th-graders. “A lot of young men have no male role models. Many are missing their fathers, and in society, too many men are portrayed as violent.”

Crespi offers classes that examine masculinity, relationships and parenting, including an exercise that requires boys to take care of and carry around eggs, pretending they’re babies.

“There’s a lot of male bonding,” Savino said.

Some studies have shown that students in all-girls schools get a better education because of the extra attention and encouragement they receive, as well as the freedom to study without worrying about impressing boys.

Crespi and officials with the Los Angeles Archdiocese say boys excel in single-sex classes for the same reasons. “Young men don’t have to spend a great deal of time preening,” said Father Gregory Coiro, a spokesman with the archdiocese who has taught at coed as well as all-boys schools. “They don’t have to worry about members of the opposite sex thinking they’re geeks.”