Grace Lutheran School in Modesto closing after 32 years

After 32 years educating young Christians, Grace Lutheran School will not open this fall, a decision reached with a vote of the congregation Sunday, Principal Cindy Shinkwin confirmed.

The summer camp running through July will continue and Grace Lutheran preschool, serving 75 students, is unaffected by the closure.

“We’re heartbroken,” Shinkwin said. “I liken it to a death in the family. We’ve had all the stages of grief.”

The decision was a financial one, based on the heavy burden of a large church mortgage, she said. The cost included the large Spirit Center gymnasium for the school’s Eagles and commercial kitchen that opened in 2007.

Grace Lutheran charged an annual tuition of $5,800, at the low end of area Christian school charges, which range up to $7,000 a year, Shinkwin said. The school’s tuition payments covered its operating costs, she said, but did not pay for the building.

There were 100 children signed up to start in kindergarten through eighth grade in August, with six teachers planning lessons around this year’s theme: “Stand Strong,” from the First Epistle of Peter.

“The beginning lesson is on creation. How God created each of us in his image,” said second-grade teacher Jeff Vigars, who has taught at the school for 23 years.

“... and how he loves us, no matter what,” finished fellow teachers perched on small chairs in a large, brightly lit and cheerily decorated classroom Thursday.

The first sign that closure was under consideration came two weeks ago, when the agenda for the congregation meeting included it, teachers said. Unlike public schools, they said, the staff has no severance pay, no unemployment insurance, no notice needed.

The closure comes as the school was growing again, after shrinking to 80 students at the worst of the recession. Grace Lutheran enrollment peaked at 130 children in 2007.

“The closing of our K-8 is a loss to a community as a whole,” Shinkwin said, noting that pupils came from several towns in the area and different denominations.

The Core Knowledge Sequence has been the base of the school’s curriculum for about 15 years, Shinkwin said, adding the school was accredited by Lutheran evaluators as well as the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, better known as WASC.

“We chose to be accredited. It helps us to be accountable,” she said. “But we are a Christian school. To us, that is why we exist, to share Christ.”

The school offered a rich program of arts, theater, instrumental music and choir, computer use, science and sports. A case full of athletic trophies stands in the school office.

“We’re a small school with a big-school feel,” said Mindy Thews, who taught third and fourth grades and junior high science.

Coach and fifth- and sixth-grade teacher Ryan Melcher said the school had volleyball, basketball and track for girls and boys. Melcher, whose firstborn is due any day, has accepted a position with a Lutheran school in Fremont.

The school’s seventh- and eighth-grade teacher will join the staff of Central Catholic High School, teaching math. Other teachers said they are looking.

Parents, all contacted by the staff, were supportive and worried about the teachers, Shinkwin said. “A little anger, but mostly just heartbroken.”

Helen Grubb, picking up her grandson after summer camp, wiped away tears. “That’s why I joined Grace. It was because of the school,” she said, adding her husband is the music director and organist at the church.

The school also brought Shinkwin to Grace Lutheran. Her third child just graduated from eighth grade there.

As word of the closure spread, other Christian schools in the area set up open houses for parents to visit their schools, she said. “Our neighboring schools have all rallied around us in prayer and support,” Shinkwin said.

The school’s furniture, band instruments and other materials are being offered to other Lutheran schools, she said.

The school is planning a Closing School Chapel ceremony for families and alumni on July 22, “to celebrate our school and a message of hope,” she said. “Not only do our students have all the memories they made here, they’ll have the adventure of making new friends.”

This story was originally published July 3, 2015 at 1:52 PM with the headline "Grace Lutheran School in Modesto closing after 32 years."