Historic Shift: Palma School welcomes girls for first time in 60 years

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    SALINAS, California (KSBW) — The Palma Brotherhood is changing.

“Even though the brotherhood traditionally might’ve been going away, we were gaining a sisterhood and gaining a family,” Holly Harris said.

Harris is the director of student activities at Palma School. Her son attends Palma School, and now her daughter will too.

For the first time since 1964, Palma is welcoming girls.

“It’s something the community has reached out to, questioned, and wanted for quite some time, and now they’re just ready to implement that this year,” said Samantha Salter, dean of students.

Of the more than 400 students in the now-co-ed high school, about 100 are girls, making up 25% of the student body.

“Back in 1951, they did start as co-ed, so this is kind of their way of getting back to their roots,” Salter said.

Palma was founded as a co-institutional school by Sacred Heart Parish in Salinas. The boys were under the congregation of Christian Brothers, and the girls were under the direction of the Sisters of Notre Dame.

Enrollment steadily increased, so the schools separated. Now, 60 years later, the school is co-ed once again.

“A lot of these kids already were friends and already had spent time together, so they were just welcoming their friends, their sisters, their cousins onto campus to actually attend classes with them,” Harris said.

There are about 50 faculty and staff members this year to make that happen and some changes to the school’s makeup.

“Constructurally, we’ve made huge changes on campus. We’ve added an all-girls locker room, we’ve updated the boys locker room, added new bathrooms, we’ve repainted the cafeteria, we’ve done so many things to help welcome all the students back on campus,” Harris said.

Changes to the structure of the school and to the institutional structure as well, adding new extracurricular activities, with each faculty member hosting a club on campus, additional sports teams, plus cheerleading, and the new “house system.”

“Our tagline for the house system is “four houses, one family.” Inside that group, they get to do team bonding, ice breakers, have some activities, learn some lessons, some social/emotional development lessons,” Harris said.

Subtle changes are making a big impact on all students on campus.

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