Kenney to Waldron Mercy Academy administrators: Reinstate Margie Winters

Jim Kenney, Philadelphia’s Democratic mayoral candidate, issued a brief statement on Thursday regarding the dismissal of Margie Winters who had, until two weeks ago, directed the religious education program at Waldron Mercy Academy in Merion.

On Wednesday, WHYY’s Bobby Allyn reported on Winters’ firing — apparently due to the fact that she is married to a woman — and the subsequent reaction from parents of students at the Catholic elementary school.

Questions center specifically on why school officials just now decided to let Winters go, since neither her marriage, nor her employment at the school, are particularly new. Winters was married in Boston in 2007, the same year she started her job at Waldron Mercy.

And others wonder whether the firing could imperil funding the school receives from the state devoted mostly to lower-income students.

Today, Kenney issued a three-sentence statement about the issue. It reads as follows:

“I applaud the parents and community members at Waldron Mercy for their outcry over the dismissal of a clearly beloved, talented educator. Discrimination and hate have no place in the Church’s teachings and certainly not in its schools. I urge the school administrators to reinstate Margie Winters.”