Lutheran Elementary School of Bay Ridge

This year our school theme is GRATITUDE, because we are so deeply GRATEFUL for all of our faculty and families, who worked so hard to keep our school community together since the COVID-19 health crisis. With the dedication of all, we were able to develop a fully virtual program in under two weeks to provide live teaching, remotely from March through June 2020. We are so GRATEFUL to all of our faculty, staff, and families, that we were able to reopen our school for full-time in person learning for all of our returning families, as well as a number of new families who were looking for alternatives to the hybrid, or fully remote offerings in the public sector.

In order to do this, we had to spend an additional $500 per child than was budgeted for. This was a particular challenge as we were not able to hold our annual Dinner Dance fundraiser in the spring which is critical for meeting our annual budget. We were able to purchase FDA approved air purifiers for every classroom; a fogging machine to effectively disinfect the whole school; individual storage bins for every student to keep their belongings; webcams and tech equipment to support our students joining us remotely due to health issues; upgraded internet to stay connected to all of our families; contactless thermometers and hand sanitizing stations; additional staff to support our COVID friendly programming; and many more supplies to eliminate sharing materials.

The pandemic has taken a great toll on the entire world. In the face of so much suffering, we are grateful to be able to focus our efforts on bringing back a little piece of “normal” for our children and families at LES. This year in particular, we are finding that we are NOT taking for granted all of the benefits of being at school, including socialization, community, group work, hands on learning, structure and routine, in addition to our rigorous academic program and our enriching “specials”- yoga, drama, art, and music. This all would not be possible without the continued support of our faculty, staff, parents, graduates, friends, and community leaders.