PSD School Ministries
Connections
September 11, 2019
Spotlight on Our Schools
Please join us in praying and thanking God for the following schools this week:

Hosanna Little Palms Preschool, Mesa, AZ
Faith Lutheran Middle School & High School, Las Vegas, NV
Faith Lutheran Academy and Preschool, Las Vegas, NV

Below are photos from Hosanna Little Palms Preschool, Mesa, AZ:
Little Palms chapel
Little Palms Preschool class
Little Palms Pre-K class
Below are photos from Faith Lutheran Middle School & High School,
Las Vegas, NV:
Faith Lutheran has the only high school hockey team and the only middle school hockey team in the State of Nevada.
High school students from Faith Lutheran visit Kenya as part of the
World Vision initiative they support.
Faith Lutheran Middle School presents "Newsies."
Below are photos from Faith Lutheran Academy and Preschool,
Las Vegas, NV:
Faith Academy students on the first day of school.
Faith Academy Principal Diana Bartholomew sharing the message about their theme for the year, the Fruits of the Spirit, in their opening chapel. 
Faith Academy Applied Christianity students leading in chapel.
Grandparent's Day at Faith Lutheran Preschool
Director Tonia Tate and Faith Lutheran Preschool staff members
Pastor Bob Sundquist baptizing a precious child of God
LEC 2019 - Spiritually Charged
LEC 2019 will be held at the JW Marriott Desert Springs in Palm Desert, CA, on November 24-26! Please click here to be directed to the LEC website for information on everything your LEC Planning Committee has been working on for you! 

All faculty and staff are welcomed and encouraged to look at the website to see the amazing things that are planned for LEC this year. However, it is VERY important that only the administrator or the administrator's designee register the full faculty and staff at the same time. Unless you have spoken with our office about a unique situation, please DO NOT register individually for this conference. All attending from the same congregation/school should be registered together as one group. 

We are especially excited for you to learn more about our Collaborative Sessions, LEC Book Clubs, and Servant Event, which will be a Thrivent-sponsored, LEC-sized action team to benefit Charity on Wheels, a homeless ministry and outreach. We will be highlighting areas of the conference in the weeks to come, but feel free to get a head start and read all about it now!
More LEC Information
At the end of August, our office mailed all administrators the annual School Services mailing. In that same envelope we included some important LEC information.

Administrators, please share with your staff about the LEC Book Clubs and the new format for Monday afternoon’s program. Speaking of Monday afternoon, please identify at least one person on your staff to lead a Speed Charging Station. You might want to personally approach a staff member by giving him/her a copy of the page on Speed Charging Stations and encouraging him/her to share his/her awesome idea(s)!

Finally, your LEC Thankoffering envelope was included in the School Services mailing. Please share with your staff about the collection of $1.00 per year of ministry to create funds for the Thankoffering scholarship. These monies are designated into a scholarship fund to be evenly distributed each year to students of PSD-LCMS church workers who are planning LCMS church work careers and applied for the Thankoffering scholarship in early summer. As you collect the funds at your school, we request that you keep the cash and instead write a check for the amount of the cash payable to the Pacific Southwest District. Thank you for your understanding!
New School Ministries Website - Resources
Continuing on our tour of the new School Ministries website, we’d like to draw your attention to the Resources page. This page has quick links to:

  • Ministry Care Guidelines
  • Administrator's Resource Guide
  • Baptism resources to share
  • K-12 resources
  • Early Childhood resources
  • LARS (Lutheran Association of Resource Specialists)
  • Admissions Directors
  • Curriculum
  • Assessment
  • Accreditation

And that's just a few at the top of the page! Scroll down just a bit and you will see links to national resources and several partners in ministry that you may find useful. National Lutheran Schools Week? There! Tec21? There! LuthEd? There! Worker Care? Yup, it’s there, too! Take a look and see what you can find that will be a valuable resource for you and your school!
Accreditation Annual Fees
All schools who are accredited with National Lutheran School Accreditation (NLSA) should have received their annual invoice from the St. Louis office. Please be sure you received it and that your annual fee is postmarked by October 1, 2019. 
Admissions Director Network Meeting
Our first Admissions Director Network Meeting of the 2019-20 school year will be held next Tuesday, September 17 , starting at 10:00am, at the District Office in Irvine. We will open with devotions, followed by a presentation from Emily Beckman , Director of Admissions at Concordia University, Irvine . Lunch and a special surprise are Rachel’s treat. For the afternoon discussion, we would like you to come prepared with one question on “how to...” and one big “win”. Rachel will also share a video with you on being your best self.  Please RSVP to Kim Violette by tomorrow, September 12, so we have a count for lunch.

Please also calendar the following dates for our meetings this school year (all are on Tuesdays) – October 15 at St. John’s, Orange; February 18 at Hope, Glendora; March 17 at Orange Lutheran High School; and May 19 at Zion, Anaheim. If you are not receiving our distribution emails, please contact Kim Violette at kim.violette@psd-lcms.org .
CAPE Outlook
Click here to read the most recent CAPE (Council for American Private Education) Outlook. In this issue:
  • CAPE Submits Comments Opposing NY Substantial Equivalency Proposal
  • Supreme Court Accepts Major Blaine Amendment Case
  • National Poll Shows Growing Support for School Choice
  • New Study on Educational Pluralism
  • US Presidential Scholars Named
Prayer Requests
Each week, prayers of thanksgiving and prayers for teachers, administrators, support staff, pastors, students, and families of the Lutheran schools, early childhood centers, and churches of the Pacific Southwest District are listed. To include names on the list, please send information to anna.preus@psd-lcms.org by noon on Wednesday of each week. This week we pray for:

  • the family of Caroline Carran, a Faith Lutheran Preschool (Las Vegas) student, who went home to be with Jesus on Sunday. It was fitting that her classmates and teachers were at church singing Jesus' praises and listening to Pastor Bob's sermon on the unimaginable home that awaits us in Heaven. We celebrate Caroline's gift of eternal life, but please keep her family, as well as the Faith staff and families, in your prayers.
  • Sheryl Grobelch, preschool director at Light of Christ, Irvine, and her family at the earthly loss of her son-in-law. We thank God for his life of faith, and pray that his family is comforted in the knowledge that he is with Jesus because of Christ’s victory over death and sin!
  • peace in our nation and the world. As we remember this very day 18 years ago, we thank God for our nation. Bless our first responders, military and government, and may we always draw near to Him in times of uncertainty.
  • those recovering from Hurricane Dorian. We pray for healing mercies.

Week of September 15
St. John’s Lutheran School, Oxnard, CA
St. Paul’s Lutheran School & Early Childhood Development Center, Orange, CA Grace Lutheran Preschool, Corona, CA
School Ministries, Pacific Southwest District-LCMS
1540 Concordia Drive East, Irvine, CA 92612
Phone 949-854-3232 | Fax 949-854-8140

Rachel Klitzing, Executive Director of School Ministries