Anyone that has stepped foot onto our campus knows that Saint Francis is a Holy Cross high school. Whether you see it on the sign outside or through the subtle (and not so subtle) ways that the cross and anchor show up throughout our campus, it is pretty clear that we have a connection to Holy Cross. However, what might not be as widely known is the fact that over half a century ago, the real Holy Cross High School was just down the road. Holy Cross was an all-girls school run by the Sisters of Holy Cross at the same time that Saint Francis was an all-boys high school.
Holy Cross was in operation from 1957 until 1972, when it was closed for financial reasons. Over the 15 years it was open, 1300 young women graduated from Holy Cross High School. In the fall of 1972, Holy Cross students joined Saint Francis, creating a coed school. Saint Francis would have been the first coed Catholic school in the South Bay Area if Archbishop Mitty High School hadn’t joined with its local all-girls school the same year.
The transition was tremendous for both schools: one was closing and the other was almost doubling in size, and students from both had to adjust to being with the opposite gender. Holy Cross announced it was closing in October of 1971, leaving its students with less than a year to prepare for a new beginning and to say goodbye to their school. Donna Schwartz Bronnel (’74) was a sophomore at Holy Cross that year and recalls her reaction: “I remember looking forward to it, because it’s a new experience, and you’re a teenager and it’s fun. Their campus was definitely better than ours was too.”
Holy Cross students were by no means strangers to Saint Francis. A student exchange program had begun in 1969; juniors and seniors from Holy Cross and Saint Francis would travel up and down Miramonte Avenue in the morning and take classes at the other school. Moreover, after school, Holy Cross students would cheer at Saint Francis football games or even sometimes play in powder puff games against the Lancers.
Gaining over 400 students wasn’t something that could just happen overnight—Saint Francis had to make sure that its campus could accommodate the growth. Over the summer of 1972, Saint Francis built the “Girls Gym” next to Alumni Gym. Pepe Hinojosa (’74) was a sophomore the year before the school became coed and credits the construction to the loose regulations of the ’70s: “They didn’t need any inspections, no permits, just skilled labor. They had access to a lot of that. Back then, there was a lot of free work that was done for Saint Francis by local people, you know, if they’re a carpenter or asphalt person or cement person, they gave a lot of free stuff to Saint Francis to help support the facility needs of the school at that time.”
In some ways, the girls from Holy Cross got the shorter end of the stick, considering they were the ones that had to pack up and move. While the transition may have been tough, it wasn’t long before the girls from Holy Cross really became Saint Francis students, and not just visitors. “After a while, it just kind of all blended together, very smoothly, and everybody was treated the same,” said Hinojosa.
One of the biggest concerns that Saint Francis had about girls coming was that it would impact their sports performance. Hinojosa recalls that, “From an athletic standpoint, there was a lot of concern that the girls would be a distraction to the boys.” Ironically, this prediction could not have been further from reality. Within one year of girls attending Saint Francis, the Lancers secured their first ever West Catholic Athletic League (WCAL) football championship. In fact, Saint Francis has become known as a stronger sports school since girls have started playing here. Since 1972, girls teams have achieved hundreds of titles at the WCAL, Central Coast Section (CCS), and state level.
