Category Archives: Administration

Tips for Finding and Retaining High-Quality Early Childhood Staff

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Written by Tarah Beduze

Staffing an early childhood ministry (ECM) can be a challenge and is one of the most difficult aspects of any director’s job. The staffing goal is to hire the best candidates in the field and retain the talented dedicated staff that already exists. What a lofty goal!

Early childhood ministry is a straining, tiring, exhausting, and sometimes frustrating field that doesn’t pay extremely well. As a result, candidates think carefully about pursuing the field or remaining in it. If you are someone looking into ECM employment or have been in the field for some time, you know that aside from the challenges in the field, there are wonderful blessings too. Continue reading →

Changing Our Relationships with School Families

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Written by Brett Bengel

Even though parents and teachers both want what’s best for children, they often find themselves at odds with each other. Educators receive emails, phone calls, and after-school visits from parents who are frustrated with out-of-touch, disconnected, and unsympathetic teachers. Teachers are frustrated with clueless, distracted, and overbearing parents. Who is correct? Continue reading →

Is School Choice the Right Choice for Your LES?

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Written by Dan Johnson

The model of parish education is changing in our synod. A greater number of schools are looking outside the church walls to continue their ministry, and that brings up questions of funding. How does a church continue to carry out the Great Commission and fund a well-rounded education? The student tuition could be raised, but higher tuition means that many families will be unable to consider the school because of their financial situation. The answer for many schools and congregations is to turn to school choice programs, using public money to pay for private school education. Continue reading →

Tips to Avoid Zoom Bombing

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Written by Jason Schmidt

Zoom video conferencing is an amazing free tool teachers can use to connect with their students. Just like anything, though, we’re finding out that something that should be really positive is making negative headlines.

It’s all over the news. Random people are dropping in on classroom meetings over Zoom and causing all sorts of disruption. They hijack the presenter’s screen to share inappropriate or disturbing content. They fill the chat room with all kinds of garbage and disrupt class audibly. “Zoom bombing,” as it’s known, is becoming a favorite pastime of many internet trolls and bored teenagers. Whole communities have popped up, sharing information on how to continue this practice.

While this new pastime is annoying, disruptive, and potentially harmful, you can take some actions to secure your classrooms. Continue reading →

Advancing Your Students Through Online Learning

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Written by Angela Hanson

How are you, your students, and their families doing now that COVID-19 has completely up-ended your lives, taken you out of the classroom, and suddenly thrown you into the world of distance learning?

While this educational arrangement may not be your normal, it has been my normal for the past seven years. I teach middle school and, previously, high school Spanish online for the Association of Lutheran High Schools Online. I also homeschool my children, ages 3, 6, 8, and 10.

Given that experience, I want to encourage you as you transition into teaching online to students who are learning from home. It is possible to advance your students in their learning! I also want you to mentally prepare (if you haven’t already) for the possibility that distance learning will be your new normal for the rest of the school year. Continue reading →

Administrative Release Time: A Paradigm That Requires Change

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Written by Harmon Krause

In the last two years, 60 principals walked away from their positions in a Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) school, affecting 19% of the schools (J. Rademan, personal communication, October 9, 2019). These principals either resigned, retired, or took non-principal positions. The WELS school system cannot sustain these losses.

I was one of those casualties. In particular, I struggled to maximize my Administrative Release Time (ART). ART is the time that schools release principals from teaching to focus on administrative tasks. I wasn’t open and transparent about how I used my ART, and that caused friction and trust issues between my staff and me.

For me and many other principals who teach and serve as principal, issues of administrative release time (ART) are critical. My master’s thesis sought to expand on previous research about ART conducted by Schmill (2009) and Meyer et al (2015). Here’s what I learned. Continue reading →

Are WELS Schools Truly Multicultural Underneath the Surface?

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Written by Grey Davis

The student body in some Lutheran schools has changed in the last 20 years. As the world globalizes, Lutheran schools see an opportunity to fulfill the Great Commission (Hoover, 2013). Increasingly, schools use access to education as a means to share the gospel of Jesus with young souls of all races and ethnicities. While such schools have physically added students with diverse backgrounds, they sometimes fail to meet the hidden needs of a changed school population.

A main challenge for multicultural schools is meeting the needs of students from minority cultures. Enrolling a diverse student body is only part of the challenge. While it may be intuitive that schools need to offer an education that meets the needs of all their students, schools may not recognize the need to reduce bias toward those cultures (Shannon-Baker 2018). Before accepting students of new races or cultures, school administrators should first prepare the school to welcome them and teach them well (Akcaoğlu & Arsal, 2017). Schools will want to slow the roll on accepting students until they grasp what it takes to operate a multicultural program. Continue reading →

Poverty and Education: What Being Poor Does to the Brain

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Written by Dan Johnson

What does poverty look like? Can you tell by looking at the students who walk into your room? Are they hungry? Dirty? Sleepy? Does poverty only affect those in large cities and urban areas, or can you see poverty in rural and suburban schools as well? It may be possible to see some of the signs of poverty in students as they come into your classroom, but what can a teacher do?

What is poverty?
The federal poverty line for a family of four is $25,750 in 2019. Poverty is defined as not having sufficient income to meet basic needs. Many families struggle to meet these basic needs. Even those families above the poverty line, at 130-200%, earning up to $51,500, will continue to exhibit signs of poverty. Continue reading →

Bridging the Gap Between Preschool and Elementary School

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Written by Shawna Tech

Just because parents choose to send their children to a Lutheran preschool doesn’t mean that they will have them continue at the Lutheran grade school. What can Lutheran elementary schools (LES) do to bridge the gap between them and their preschools?

As ministers of the gospel, Lutheran school teachers want to share the good news about the Savior with as many children as possible. Unfortunately, many LES have seen a decline in enrollment over the years. Possible factors include families having fewer children, charter schools offering a “free” education, and homeschooling. Opening a preschool to feed the LES may seem like a viable solution to declining enrollment, but it seldom works as hoped. Continue reading →