Pastor Timothy Wagner returned the call last Saturday evening to join us in Two Rivers.  Pastor Wagner and family will continue to serve Lamb of God Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ohio.  Another call meeting has tentatively been scheduled for Sunday, March 5th at 1pm at the church.  Please plan on joining us and continue to keep our shared ministries in your prayers!

The accreditation team finished up with their report yesterday, and the outcome was good news, but first I have to explain a little.

Whenever a school has an accreditation team come to their school, the final report and the team’s recommendation are sent to the synod offices. The Commission on Lutheran Schools (CLS) at the synod offices reviews all the reports from schools who go through accreditation. They do this once a year – the end of August and into September. Since our report will be sent this next week, our school’s report and recommendation from the site visit yesterday and Monday will not be able to be reviewed until next year when the CLS goes through all the reports from the schools who went through accreditation during 2016-2017 school year.

That said, there are 99 sub-standards that need to be fully met, and we fully met 98 of those. We had to put some locks on some of our cupboards. Now that this has been accomplished we have met all 99 of those required sub-standards. Our accreditation team will recommend to the CLS that St. John’s receives “Full Accreditation”. This “Full Accreditation” status, however, will not go into effect until next Fall when the CLS reviews all the reports from the 2016-2017 school year. even if we would have fully met all 99 of the required as of yesterday, we still would have to wait until the Fall of 2017 for our report to be reviewed by the CLS.

So….after all of the above, you may be wondering, “Did we achieve accreditation status?” The short answer to that is “yes.” But in order for full accreditation status to be officially recognized as such by WELSSA (the accreditation agency), we will have to wait until the CLS reviews our report next Fall.

Another question that you be be asking is, “will the CLS pass our team’s recommendation of Full Accreditation Status?” To that question, our team captain mentioned to us yesterday that in the 25+ school visits he has led, all of the team’s recommendations were approved by the CLS.

So, thank you to all of you for any help you gave, thank you for answering questions from the team if you were contacted or spoken to in the hallways, and thank you for helping make St. John’s a great school! Continue to pray for the ministry of St. John’s.

I was pleased on the outcome as were all the members of the team and those who helped with the standards. At the end of our meeting yesterday, we found out that we were only a few points away from the team recommending “Exemplary Accreditation Status” – the highest rating a school can get! A great goal the next time we go through this process, which will be every 5 years.

I will keep you updated as I hear more from our team and the CLS.

If you have any questions about all of this, please do not hesitate to ask.

Again, thank you!

Blessings on your day.

Ryan Jaeger – Principal, Grades 3-8 Departmentalized

St. John’s Lutheran School

Wednesday mornings and evenings, you’re invited to join us for a Bible Class seeking God’s will regarding Christians and voting.  The class titled “Called to Vote,” will be held for four consecutive Wednesdays, start October 5th, at 10:00AM and 7:15PM in the school music room at 3607 45th Street in Two Rivers.  All materials will be provided, although a personal Bible would be beneficial.  Bring a fellow citizen, of the USA, and of the King!