Good Shepherd Lutheran School - Menifee

After writing the previous article, where I mentioned Menifee Union School District is seeing its student enrollments going down, I wanted to take a look at a private school here in Menifee, Good Shepherd Lutheran School, and see where they're at.

Go back to last January, when the topic of the day was Measure B, the school bond that was going to raise property taxes to build more schools. I wanted to know if Good Shepherd was experiencing crowded classrooms, or what.

I spoke to Rob McDowell, Principal at Good Shepherd. The school teaches grades K-7, taking a child all the way from kindergarten, and 2/3 of the way through middle school.

He said that they have plenty of room for more students. The school has 12 classrooms, and they're set up for 20 kids per classroom. That would give them a maximum capacity of 240 students. However at this time, they're sitting at about half of that capacity. So basically, they have an average of 10 kids per classroom.

As far as tuition is concerned, the cost is paid at $400.00 a month, for 10 months. The cost is the same for all grades, with the exception of preschool.

I asked McDowell as to why more parents don't enroll their kids at his school. His answer was economics. He said that for some families, $400.00 per month is too much to afford. But he also acknowledged that there are families who can afford it, but just prefer to use public schools instead.

He also acknowledged that Good Shepherd Lutheran School is a "congregational school", and that may be prohibitive to some families.

I asked if he could explain why there aren't more private schools in Menifee, and he saw it as a lack of demand. First, there's the tuition issue, and second, people just don't give private schools a thought. I asked if there were any political hurdles that private schools have to overcome to become established, and he said "no". Basically, it's just a lack of demand.

Being that I wanted to write an article about his school, he wanted to say that he's very proud of his teaching staff, and that the school holds its teaching standards to a very high level. He explained that their teachers work on a year-to-year contract, and as a result the school can choose not to renew a teacher's contract if that teacher doesn't meet their standards.

But he also went on to acknowledge that in his experience, the single greatest factor in a child achieving high educational marks, is the child's desire to learn, and not so much being in a private or public school.

I don't get the sense that Good Shepherd is experiencing a drop in enrollment due to the current economy, or foreclosures. It seems that parents who can afford private schooling are probably in good financial shape.

I can agree that there are many families who can't afford the $400.00 a month tuition. I probably also agree there are many others who can, but prefer to save the money and send their kids to public schools.

If budget problems continue to get worse with Menifee Union, and Menifee Union is forced to cut back even more services, will Good Shepherd benefit as a result?

You can learn more about Good Shepherd Lutheran School at their website...

http://www.gslcmsmenifee.org/k7.cfm