Dear Parents,

During the past several weeks, our country has been working through issues surrounding racial
tensions.  As Pope Francis recently stated, “We cannot tolerate or turn a blind eye to racism and
exclusion in any form and yet claim to defend the sacredness of life …” To that regard, I want to
assure you that Bishop Kenny remains steadfast in its commitment to be a welcoming school for
students of all colors, races, and nationalities.  

Understanding the value of transparency, I want to share with you that on June 4, it was brought to
my attention that a social media page was created, and comments have been made about racism
while at Bishop Kenny. While this is not a social media page that is operated by the school and the
anonymous quotes make it very difficult to verify the authenticity of the content, we are taking the
comments very seriously and are saddened by them.  

As I said in my June 5 letter titled, “BK’s Stance Against Racism”, the events happening around our
country right now have provided us all with a necessary moment to ask questions about racism.
Please know that at Bishop Kenny, we too are discussing this important topic and asking questions of
ourselves to review what we can do better. 

The administration at Bishop Kenny values your opinion and cares about your concerns.  We have
established several action plans with more in the planning process. Since the beginning of the month,
I have been talking with concerned members of our BK community, and I have an open-door policy for
anyone that would like to make an appointment to meet with myself or another member of our
administration to share their experience, concerns or suggestions directly.  It is clear members of our
community are hurting, and they want to be heard.  We are prepared to listen.  I am working on the
formation of a diverse task force to guide Bishop Kenny on matters of racism and will look to it to
thoroughly review, analyze and develop plans to understand what programs could and should be
implemented to combat racism.  In the near future, we will survey all alumni, parents, students and
community members so they can submit their experiences to us directly. Our task force will read
every submission thoroughly to obtain content for future action plans.  Further details on these
initiatives will be forthcoming.  

In the meantime, I would like to ask you as parents to have conversations with your children about
racism.  Now more than ever we need to talk about racism and our responsibility to uphold each
other’s unique dignity as children of God.  Bishop Kenny remains resolute in its commitment to our
strong discrimination policy and our mission to, “partner with parents in the education and formation
of their children by providing a culture of faith, personal enrichment and high academic standards in
which all students can achieve and excel as they prepare for college and for life.”

As Catholics at Mass, we confess “that I have sinned through my own fault, in what I have done and
what I have failed to do.”  I am working to acknowledge where our own body of Christ has failed
actively and perhaps more often through inaction.  We are sorry if anyone in our community has been
hurt by racism while at Bishop Kenny, and we are committed to using this moment to bring about real
and meaningful change to our school.  My prayers are with our community and with our school now
more than ever.  

I cannot do this alone, please join me in prayer and action as we build a better Bishop Kenny.

Sincerely,

Todd Orlando
Principal