Lutheran schools adapting to economy's hard hits

Lutheran Schools across the country have spent recent months gearing up for Lutheran Schools Week, five days focused on promoting Christian education.

This year's theme, "Serving Each Child's Future for Eternity," is especially poignant - as several suburban schools are facing the fight of their lives.

Lutheran schools, while they generally get financial help from the churches they are tied to, receive no monetary help from a higher power - like that which struggling Catholic schools would get from the Chicago Archdiocese.

Instead, they're on their own to keep up their buildings, pay their teachers and assist needy students.

With the nation's economy in a downward spiral, area principals say, those tasks are becoming harder than ever.

Immanuel Lutheran School in East Dundee has been hit hard in several ways.

The prekindergarten through eighth-grade school saw a 30-student drop in preschool enrollment from 2007 to 2008.

Enrollment at the grade school, with 215 students, Principal Ken Becker said, has been relatively steady from last year to this year, with a loss of just three students.

However, with preregistration currently underway, Becker said kindergarten classes likely won't be as full next fall.

Starting this week, the school's dozen full-time teachers will take a 3 percent pay cut. Before the cuts, Immanuel teachers' pay ranged from $29,000 to $41,000 - between $10,000 and $35,000 less than teachers in Carpentersville-based Community Unit District 300 typically make.

The school has also seen a rise in requests for scholarships, extending more than $25,000 in financial aid money this year.

David Ingwersen, principal of Immanuel Lutheran School in Crystal Lake, says his school has been luckier than most. Sale of a church-owned farmhouse and adjacent land several years ago helped finance the ongoing building of a new, $11 million school building.

"We're pretty positive and optimistic that a new building will help our enrollment," Ingwersen said. "But it's a changing environment for Lutheran schools right now."

He said the school had broadened its approach and marketing to appeal to anyone looking for an alternative to public education, rather than focusing strictly on Lutherans.

"I think traditionally, we've been there for church members," Ingwersen said. "But now there's a change in perspective from a Lutheran school to a private school mentality."

Good Shepherd School in Elgin, whose kindergarten- through eighth-grade enrollment is down by 30 students, is one of those schools attempting a change in perspective to stay afloat.

"Our concern is not this year, where we feel like a lot of families are struggling to make it work, but the coming year," preschool director Dawn Knosher said last week.

The Good Shepherd school board last fall hired a consultant to help formulate a plan to reinvent itself. An outline will be presented before the church's congregation for a vote today.

"We've been put on a gag order, so to speak," Knosher said, declining to reveal the details of the plan before congregation members heard it. She said, though, that it "will help the school to be more fiscally responsible, and help us not take away from the church's resources."

As a result, she said, the scope of the school's services will change. "And our school is going to look different next year."

The belief is that the changes will prevent the school from closing the doors, she said.

"I've had so many people call me and say, I heard you're closing. We want to get the word out we are not shutting our doors. I believe that we'll come out better," she said. "But it's a very significant faith walk right now."