Letter from the President

July 30, 2020

Dear Friends of Cathedral High School,

I am pleased to share this report that acknowledges all of those who have joined us in our mission at Cathedral that was started over 300 years ago by St. John Baptist De LaSalle in France. Your investment and support have allowed us to continue our rich school history. Amid these difficult and uncertain times, I’m proud that nearly 100% of the class of 2020 earned admission to college with 80% being admitted to a four-year university.

This year we have chosen as our school wide theme for our students to be Concern for the Poor and Social Justice. Given all the recent events in our society, we believe that concentrating on this theme will assist our students on being empathetic and agents of positive changes within our society. As we celebrate the start of our ninety-sixth year of service within the Los Angeles community we have challenged our students to accept all their differences and come together as brothers.

During the last three years we have built the new Phantom Theater and the Visual Performing Arts Building. We have now replaced and improved most of the campus and are in a great position to meet the needs of the whole Los Angeles community. We serve and will continue to serve young men from our traditional parishes and neighborhoods where I and many others of us grew up. These are some of the oldest and poorest areas of the city and Cathedral continues to do its best work with students from these neighborhoods. Students are also traveling from the San Gabriel Valley, Hollywood, Culver City, Pasadena and Glendale areas to benefit from what Cathedral has to offer. We are one of the few private or Catholic schools that I’m aware of in the country that serves such a diverse economic mixture of families. We have a significant number of lower income families and a significant number of middle-income families within our school community. This speaks volumes about the kind of atmosphere and community of brotherhood at Cathedral that has been created to achieve this environment.

Although we have a healthy freshman class of 160 boys and a total student body today of 620, the economic conditions of our state and country because of COVID-19 have continued to adversely affect our families and we have had to increase our financial aid budget to $4,100,000 this year from $3,800,000 for the prior year. This has been done because of our commitment to offer a quality religious and academic education to any qualified student willing to work regardless of his family economic situation.

In my twenty years at Cathedral I have never been as impressed as I am today about the work of our students, Brothers, faculty and staff. I ask and encourage you to continue to invest generously in the education of the students of Cathedral High School.

MARTIN FARFAN, ‘86, PRESIDENT