Principal Elizabeth Wegner spoke passionately about her struggling Central Lutheran School Saturday as she sat in a tiny plastic chair in her favorite room — the toddler room.
“My teachers are so awesome,” she said, raising her hands skyward with the mixed sentiments of pride, love, frustration and determination.
The five full-time and two part-time teachers who manage the 80 students in the K-8 school on Lexington Parkway have been working for lower pay the last couple of months as the school struggles to find new revenue streams. The school has a separate year-round toddler care and preschool section that gets some state and county funding.
In a recent meeting with board members about the financial difficulties, the teachers were not interested in closing the 130-year-old school.
“They were very adamant,” Wegner said. “They said, ‘We are going to make whatever sacrifices we need to in order to stay open.’ ”
Central Lutheran School, a one-story 27,000-square-foot yellow brick building in the Midway neighborhood, used to operate mostly on student tuition. The school offers grants and scholarships so that students can afford the average $10,000-per-student per-year tuition. This means that the actual money collected from tuition works out to about $3,500 per student, Wegner said.
She estimates that about 80 percent of CLS students receive some form of financial aid and more than half receive free or reduced-price lunches. Only about five families can pay the full tuition, she said.
It’s not enough to prop up the school’s annual $950,000 budget, so Wegner and her staff have begun looking outside the usual fundraisers and donations to supplement its revenue. One of those places has been the Gofundme website where the school has a page asking for $450,000.
“The story is simple,” the Gofundme page explains. “We are in deep financial trouble. In order to pay our faculty, staff and many bills, we must raise lots of money quickly. If we don’t the great things we do for Jesus at CLS will end and the school will close.”
The Gofundme campaign raised over $2,000 in 18 days.
DECLINING ENROLLMENT, SUPPORT
Wegner said declining enrollment has played a part in the school’s diminishing funds.
“In its heyday, there were upwards of 600 kids here,” she said. “I keep trying to figure out where they put them.”
Other things along the way have weakened the school financially.
The 2008 recession, for example, hit them hard. Not only were families who lost income unable to afford the private school, they also didn’t contribute as much to the four Lutheran churches that help support the school. The churches currently help support 17 students, subsidizing $2,400 toward each tuition bill.
Competition from charter schools and home-schooling has also made a dent in their student population, Wegner said.
Many of the families at the school are first- and second-generation immigrants. Wegner estimates the student body is 50 percent white, 30 percent East African, 15 percent Burmese and 5 percent Hispanic.
The school was dealt another blow last summer when a systems malfunction caused government funding for toddlers and preschoolers to lag two months behind.
“It’s such a tightrope,” Wegner said. “The checks were coming late. We had to play catch-up.”
She estimates that the school is currently $350,000 in debt, of that, $127,000 is debt to vendors. Much of the rest is back pay to teachers and to Wegner, who said she often donates her entire paycheck so her teachers can get paid.
‘DOING SOMETHING NEW’
The option of closing down is something no one at Central Lutheran wants to consider. The staff is proud of the many opportunities they provide their students on a limited budget.
Pastor Nick Kooi from Emmaus Lutheran Church, which helps support the school, said he has been impressed with the dedication and creativity of the staff.
“Every wing does a play and a musical and everyone has a part in the play,” he said. Students also compete on sports teams, play in musical ensembles, and participate in choir trips. They also collect for the needy and recently donated Play-Doh to the cancer ward at Children’s Hospital.
But, most of all, it’s the faith-based environment that is needed and the work of training students to be servant leaders, he said.
“We seek to provide a Christian education based on Lutheran traditions,” he said. “When there’s a faith crisis, we can say, ‘Let’s pray about that.'”
Wegner said the school needs to do an organizational reboot and come up with a new financial plan. It may consider partnering with like-minded churches that aren’t necessarily Lutheran.
“We have to learn how to change faster,” she said, “but I don’t mean change our message.”
While touring the school, Pastor Kooi pointed out a banner bearing the year’s theme verse. Written in four languages over a shifting river, it reads, “See, I am doing something new,” from Isaiah 43:19. He feels it embodies the approach CLS is taking toward its future.
“It’s indicative of what we’re doing here,” he said.
