Reflection No.69 New York Schools Association and Urban Center

 Parent Effectiveness gained such a wide acceptance that a national writer even called it a “national movement”. But it is hard to maintain such a phenomena. My staff and I struggled to maintain and grow the movement and were not succeeding. In spite of our significant efforts and generous use of funds for consultants and specialized staff slowly the number of participants and dollars began to decline. The growth in foreign participants was significant, but unfortunately that did not generate income at the same rate as in the USA. I felt a deep sense of responsibility to the staff and became increasingly frustrated at my failure to grow the program. Maybe it was time for someone else to try his or her hand.

At that time I received an unexpected invitation from Dr. Les Bayer and Dr. Richard Engebrecht from New York. They both urged me to get back into a leadership position within the Lutheran school system of the world. They came up with an offer that was both scary and challenging. They urged me to come and be the part-time Director of the The Lutheran Schools Association of New York and the Director of Projects for the newly formed Center for Urban Education Ministries. There was one major catch: neither of the two organizations really had any money. The LSA had some $15,000.00 in its bank account and the CUEM depended upon regularly writing grants and the continued financial support of a visionary couple: Charles and Mary Gundelach. So they made me an offer. Come to New York. We can guarantee you $25,000.00 a year -but you will be free to use half of your time to do your own thing of consulting, speaking or whatever you need to do to get enough money to make it. With the incredible support of an ever-faithful Jane, I accepted.

  

Our 8 years in New York were wonderful. The challenges of running some 50 Lutheran schools in the metropolitan New York community were formidable. Parents had high and varied expectations. The student bodies and staff were extremely multi-cultural. (Queens Lutheran School had some 16 different native languages spoken by their students). The principals were challenged beyond what most people could imagine. So my major focus was simply on supporting those principals. We organized and maintained mutual support groups. We arranged for events that built morale and acknowledged the significant contributions they were making to church and society. We chose to be available 24 hours a day to address needs. We kept busy traveling to Albany to keep strong and supportive relationships with the State education department and the State Superintendent of Public Schools We made sure that Catholics, Lutheran, Christian and Jewish leaders supported one another.

The Center for Urban Education took the learnings from New York and shared them across the country. We addressed a new major change in local Lutheran school leadership with the emergence of female administrators where for decades the principal had always been a male. We helped Lutheran schools across the country change their funding model from dependence upon local congregation support to being self-supporting through tuition and ever on-going local development and even government support. We helped teachers learn to adjust to multi-cultural classrooms with students coming from all of the world religions or from non-religious families. It was all very challenging and exciting. We gathered the top principals of urban Lutheran schools nationwide in special convocations for mutual support, affirmation and inspiration

 We raised money through grants from Thrivent, the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League, individual donors, golf tourneys, fund-raising dinners etc. etc. I was able to find alternative sources for my personal income. I became a staff associate for Wheat Ridge Ministries (now We Raise); I spoke at events across the country, did consulting and training g events for a variety of agencies around the world and served as a part-time staff assistant to Bishop Lazarus of the ELCA Metro New York Synod.

Housing in New York was even more expensive than in California. We were first assisted by Dr. Ralph Schulz president of Concordia New York who made faculty housing available. Then an incredible, if sad, coincidence enabled us to purchase a nice home A young man who been in my youth group at Glendale Cal in the 1950’s had accepted a position at Concordia New York. Then tragically he and his wife were killed when their private plane crashed. Their home became available and the family sold it to us at a most generous cost.  My wife Jane and our kids refurbished the house basement and turned it into the office for LSA and provided it rent-free to LSA for all those 8 years.

I loved New York and I was thrilled to be part of an education ministry which endeavored to make life better for those living in the major urban concentrations in the USA-especially those in underserved community where the challenges and the can do attitude of the multi-ethnic families is a constant source of my admiration and respect.