For nearly 50 years, it's been a woman's world at Louisville High School, a Catholic college preparatory high school for young women on Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills.
While students no longer have to wear white high-heeled pumps and gloves for formal dress as they did during the school's early years, their education still follows the vision of the Sisters of St. Louis who founded the campus in 1960: to provide a Catholic environment of learning and personal growth for girls.
"Our mission is to provide an education for girls in the Gospel tradition," said Sister of St. Louis Bríd Long, a member of Louisville's board of directors, whose religious order is celebrating its 60th anniversary ministering in the archdiocese, primarily as educators, in 2009. "We came in 1949 during the burgeoning of the big Catholic school system when every parish was building a school and a convent," she said.
Louisville's oak tree-shaded property, acquired by the Los Angeles Archdiocese and the Sisters of St. Louis in 1958, was planned as a novitiate and all-girls' school, since there were already two neighboring all-boys' high schools at the time, Crespi Carmelite in Encino and Notre Dame (now co-ed) in Sherman Oaks.
The campus is situated at Manzanita Ranch, the former home of the late actress Marjorie Rambeau, who made 60 films during the 1940s and '50s. The two-time Oscar nominee established the 17-acre chicken ranch in the early '40s, which produced much-in-demand eggs for area hospitals and grocers. Rambeau's perseverance in the face of adversity --- she continued acting after a crippling car injury in 1945 --- represents a pioneering legacy of strength for Louisville students, say school administrators.
"I think the students here really have a chance to know and understand themselves as young women in an all-girls' setting, which is very important," since many adolescent females experience a lack of self-confidence, says Kathleen Vercillo, Louisville's principal.
In the classroom, she explains, Louisville students "don't have the distraction of worrying about what the opposite sex is thinking. They can relax and be themselves and really get to know who they are, what they like and dislike, and gain the confidence to walk away from here and be able to enter a coed setting."
She notes female graduates of single-sex high schools demonstrate stronger academic orientations than coed graduates, with higher SAT scores and greater confidence in mathematical ability and computer skills, according to a UCLA report released last month.
Meg Milne Moulton, executive director of the National Coalition of Girls' Schools which commissioned the UCLA study based on a comparison of responses of 6,552 female graduates of 225 private single-sex high schools with those of 14,684 women who graduated from 1,169 private coed schools, says the report's results highlight the advantages of all-girls' high schools.
"The culture, climate and community of girls' schools as a transforming force speaks loud and clear in the results of this study and confirms it's 'cool to be smart,'" said Moulton in a UCLA press release. She noted that there's a "culture of achievement" at an all-girls' school in which "the discovery and development" of a girl's individual potential is paramount.
Louisville assistant principal for academics, Jennifer Pérez, says a common catch phrase around campus is, "Not equal opportunity, but every opportunity." Students are encouraged to try everything, including student leadership, athletics (there are 12 school sports), performing and visual arts, campus ministry and advanced placement classes.
"The students here are not overshadowed by male competition. They're not inhibited or intimidated, and so they are the stars of every show and everything they do here," said Pérez. .
"I think one of the things that is unique to single-sex schools is that there's a climate here that allows students to fail successfully," says Gail Devine, school college counselor. "For students to learn, they have to be willing to take a chance and be willing to fail in order to pick themselves up and move on and learn from the experience.
"And the nice thing about being in a very nurturing environment, like Louisville, is that our students are very much willing to do that. They'll try new things, and if they're not successful at it, they can recognize they can learn from that experience and move on to something else and build on it," said Devine.
Louisville girls' willingness to try new things was demonstrated when several "stepped up" to play the male roles of Buffalo Bills in the school's recent "Music Man" musical, said Kathleen Nicholas, campus minister. "They did it joyfully and with enthusiasm," she said. "They just do it because they can and they're encouraged to do it."
The school's emphasis on social justice awareness is part of the school's mission, Nicholas added. "It's part of the air they breathe at Louisville [that they're] here to be a person for others. They get it." The girls participate in many charitable fundraisers, including collecting money for the Sisters of St. Louis international ministries in Africa and Brazil.
"I think I considered myself on the shy side when I came in [to Louisville], but not by the time I left," said '83 graduate Laura Taylor Flynn, director of Louisville's public relations who played on the school's volleyball team and later played the sport at Loyola Marymount University where she majored in computer science. She said she found it "kind of cool" to be in Louisville's environment where it was OK to be smart and take the hard classes; at the same time, she never felt a heavy sense of academic competitiveness.
Louisville, Flynn said, prepared her well to excel in computer science. "I didn't find it intimidating that it was a very male-dominated major, which all those engineering majors were, but it didn't really faze me," said Flynn. "It was a very challenging major, but it never occurred to me to not stick it out."
For Maura Piazza (Louisville '81), youngest of eight siblings, the all-female environment and small student body helped her find her voice, literally. "I think if I had gone anywhere else, I would not have been noticed. It was here that a wonderful Sister mentioned she thought I could sing. I sang and that was it," said Piazza, who studied music at Cal State University, Northridge and has been Louisville's choral director for the past 11 years.
Brooke Carpenter, a Louisville senior and ASB president who started playing water polo at the school and has an athletic scholarship next year at USC, says her high school experience has been integral to her education and social growth. "Class discussions are more intimate; you can really say a lot more when it's just girls," said Carpenter.
"I think the environment we create at Louisville counteracts the negative influences of an appearance-driven culture," said senior Colleen Osborne, who is considering attending Pepperdine. "Most of us are really positive, and we try to boost one another's confidence, which I think is a huge advantage to an all-girls' school. I know my confidence has grown so much just being here [where] you can just be yourself and not be afraid to participate in class."
"I didn't expect being in an all-girls' school would be so much fun [where] you can open yourself up to so many new things," said Rola Hawatmeh, senior class vice president who anticipates attending Cal Lutheran next year. "I would never have run for student council if I didn't have the support of the girls. The thing about Louisville is that everyone interacts and we all see each other as equals. I have best friends in all different kinds of groups. We're unified, and that's what I like about it." For more information on Louisville High School, visit www.louisvillehs.org or call (818) 346-8812. |