July 2017
Forty percent of all Lutheran elementary school principals are expected to be at or past retirement age by the year 2020.
In the past four years, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Northern Illinois District has had 12 principals from its 50 Lutheran elementary schools retire. Another 13 of the 50 are expected to retire by 2020.
As of mid-July there were 11 principal vacancies still posted on the LCMS Northern Illinois District website. Those not able to call a new principal will fill the position with an interim principal, often a semi-retired worker, this coming year.
“Many fewer church worker students coming into the Concordia University System for the past 20 years has created a great void in creating replacements for retiring people,” said NID’s Mission Facilitator for Schools, Mike Zimmer. “Among current teachers and principals in our Lutheran schools nationwide, 71% are not rostered.” (Being rostered is the education and certification process of the Synod to ensure the theological grounding to bring a Christian world view into the Lutheran day school classroom, even in so-called secular subjects.)
The Synod has had a school leadership development initiative (SLED) since 1996, but it has limited capacity. Only 30 participants were in SLED’s training program this summer.
With Synod’s blessing, now a regional training program will augment what the national school ministry department is doing and develop emerging school leaders for six districts in the upper Midwest. Terry Schmidt, Director of Schools for the LCMS, attended and was part of this new process called FLAME (Future Lutheran Administrators – Midwest Educators).
Their first session, held June 28-30 at Concordia Ann Arbor (Michigan), had 35 future school leaders hand-picked from their districts in attendance. Each of the districts provided funding, and the potential future administrators each paid a $100 fee.
The NID’s  Mike Zimmer was one of the instructors, and six future leaders from NID schools participated. Zimmer has his MA in educational administration, has served for 34 years as teacher, parish administrator, elementary and high school administrator and in two district offices. He currently serves as vice chair of the Lutheran Education Association (LEA), is a member of the National Association of Mission Endeavors (NAME) and is a board member for Coach Advance.
All of the instructors, who came from within the six districts (North and South Wisconsin, Northern Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio) are similarly gifted. Sessions focused on such things as board governance, decision making, leading change, developing relationships with church-school constituencies, managing daily operations, communication and admissions, and building a mission culture.
According to Zimmer, the biggest shortfall in synodically prepared teachers and administrators nationwide is in early childhood education. There is no uniform method across Synod to help schools find appropriate workers, other than an online system with its Commissioned Minister Information Forms (CMIF), which school call committees are given access to through their district’s education office. A few districts have a staff person devoted specifically to helping schools in candidate searches — a head hunter, so to speak. But with limited resources, NID is not one of them.
Meanwhile, pastors and Lutheran school boards have the opportunity to scout out potential principals from within their staff. Begin the conversation about the workers and the school’s future goals and encourage exploration of the various administrator education programs that support Lutheran schools. For more information, email office@nidlcms.org.