Lutheran church to open school
Published Monday September 22nd, 2008
Concordia Academy accepting kindergarten students now for class to begin next year
By Eric Lewis
Times & Transcript Staff
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church of Moncton will break ground this weekend on a new private school and daycare behind the church on Hildegard Drive in Moncton.
This is the front elevation plan for the new building. The first phase is expected to be complete in January.
This weekend, the church will break ground just behind it in the first visible step toward the opening of its own private school.
Concordia Academy will open in three stages over the next five years, with the first step to be completed by January and the first kindergarten class to move in Sept. 2009.
Milette says the school will eventually serve children from kindergarten to Grade 8, and he says it will uphold high academic standards.
Richard Betsch, a congregation member, is the construction and building co-ordinator for the project.
Betsch's wife Debra has been operating a daycare, Kingswood Academy, in the basement of the 20-year-old church for the last two years.
The daycare is a separate entity from the church, but they have a solid relationship that has led to some growth in the congregation.
"The daycare revitalized the church, revitalized the congregation," says Betsch. "Flowers got planted, lawns got cut, kids from the daycare would attend Sunday school, families were starting to come to school every so often . . . These were things that weren't happening and now are."
Pastor Milette agrees.
"They help out with the congregation, and they also give an opportunity for many people who would never really find a reason to come into a church building to come into a church building," he explains.
When Lutheran Church-Canada, the governing body of the church, saw the success of the daycare, it asked the church if it would consider opening a Lutheran school. The Lutheran body keeps an extension fund to maintain or rebuild churches across the country.
Roughly two years of research precipitated the Moncton project before all involved decided to give it a go.
Lutheran Church-Canada is kicking in about $2 million for the school and additional fundraising will be done to complete the project and even tear down and rebuild the church if all goes well.
Once complete, the school will serve up to 135 students (15 per grade in Grades 1-8).
Phase one will be about 6,500 square feet over two stories, and it is expected to be finished by January.
An addition will be added later of another 6,500 square feet about two years later, and the third step will be the addition of a gymnasium for use by the school and surrounding community three years after that.
Kingswood Academy will also move into the new building once the first phase is complete.
Kingswood Academy daycare has about 40 youngsters attending right now, and Betsch says the school aims to retain about 10 of them for the first kindergarten class.
Betsch says the school's curriculum is based on western Canadian curriculum that will include math, health, science, English, French, essentially all of the normal school subjects, in addition to religion.
"Religion is taught, but it's not as dogmatic as people might think," Betsch explains.
Tuition will be $500 per month ($5,000 per year), and there will be summer programs available as well.
The church is currently in the process of selecting a principal.
Pastor Milette will run a daily chapel service for the kids, but says he wants "someone who has all the necessary qualifications" to be selected as a principal.
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Moncton is the only Lutheran church in Metro Moncton. There are only a few Lutheran churches on the East Coast, including one in Saint John.
Outside of the public education system in North America and the Catholic private education system, the Lutheran system is the largest, explains Betsch.
Pastor Milette says he is happy to see the church growing, and he is excited about the school project.
"I love it," says Milette. "It's intimidating because it's a big project, but I didn't become a pastor because I wanted everything to be nice and simple and straight-forward."
The school groundbreaking will take place this Sunday at 12:30 p.m. just behind Good Shepherd Lutheran Church at 25 Hildegard Dr. in Moncton. The president of the east district of Lutheran Church-Canada, Alan Maleske, will be on hand.
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