Pilgrim Lutheran School
Pilgrim Lutheran School recently celebrated 100 years of offering “Academic Excellence with a Heart” right here in Northcenter. With small class sizes and a low student to teacher ratio, each of their approximately 150 students is guaranteed individual attention and opportunities to help them learn in the best way possible. It’s a tight knit community, and Principal Chris Comella filled us in on what makes this school special.
1. What grades do you offer?
We’re a small private school that offers Early Childhood (3 year old+) through 8th grade classes. Some grade levels are combined, which offers a unique learning experience that allows teachers to structure lessons based on where each student is at - rather than where their grade level says they should be.
2. What makes Pilgrim different from other schools in the area?
We always hear from our families that Pilgrim feels like a tight-knit community. We have a high level of parental involvement, and older students have opportunities to take on leadership roles and mentor the younger ones. Teachers are able to see each child’s strengths and challenges, and students consistently test at or over the 80th percentile in both reading and math. We’re also really proud of our play-based Early Childhood program. Our prekindergarten and kindergarten teachers create a nurturing and supportive environment, where every child feels safe and encouraged to grow and learn at their own pace. Finally, all our students - even our youngest pre-kindergarteners - take Spanish, music, and art at least once a week. And our on-site social worker helps kids to navigate their feelings and friendships with regular SEL classes.
3. How do you stay involved and relevant to the greater community?
Each classroom participates in a service learning project. For example, this year the 1st graders wrote letters to residents at a local nursing home, while the 8th graders chose to work at a local food pantry. We also have a project as a whole school, and at Christmas time we worked with Exodus World Service, which is a group that assists refugees with housing. We collected enough materials to set up two apartments for their program participants.
4. Your website says “inspired by grace” and mentions students of all faiths developing their own spirituality. What does that mean or include?
Lutherans believe that grace is given by God, and when you’re filled with grace you want to work with other people. Only 20% of our kids identify as Lutheran, but our approach is to let students know that we all have a lot of gifts that are given to us and there are many ways to best use and share them with other people. We try to teach our students to have intrinsic motivation, with a certain amount of agency to make decisions and problem solve.
5. If you were to join one of the extracurricular teams, which would you choose?
Volleyball - I wasn’t big on sports growing up, and volleyball is a great way for kids who feel similar to get involved and build their confidence. We offer plenty of other extracurricular opportunities in terms of fine arts and team sports, and have amazing parent volunteers who make it all happen!
Follow Pilgrim on Instagram and Facebook, and if you’d like to hear more, visit their Open House on Thursday, April 7 at 7PM. They also offer school tours every Tuesday at 10AM. Sign-up is on their website.
