This

is the second in a series of articles comparing

Fayette County's public and private schools.

What differences

would a parent notice if she opted to pull her

child out of public school and put him into one

of the church schools now open in Fayette County?

For that matter, what differences would the

student note?

In this series,

Sallie Satterthwaite goes inside some of

Fayette's public and private schools to provide

an indepth look at what's different, and what's

the same.

Lutherans have been

in the school-teaching business in this country

for nearly 400 years, thanks to the philosophy of

immigrating Swedes, Austrians and Saxons who

wanted to enable children to read Scripture and

Martin Luther's Catechism.

St. Paul Lutheran

School on Ardenlee Parkway in Peachtree City is

part of the largest Protestant school system in

the United States. The congregation that built it

is one of about 2,200 of the Lutheran

Church-Missouri Synod's 6,000 congregations

now operating schools, a tradition that dates

from the denomination's establishment in 1847.

LC-MS schools are

built and controlled by the local congregation,

with building loans, teacher-training, and

curriculum materials available through district

and national offices. Most are elementary, but

there are also kindergarten and pre-K as well as

state-certified high schools, 10 universities, a

boarding high school, and two seminaries.

St. Paul's

principal, Gordon Stuckert, says the school is

open to children of any religious background.

While nationally about 50 percent of LC-MS

students are non-Lutherans, at St. Paul the ratio

is about 70 percent from other denominations.

St. Paul is in its

third year, the first in its completed new

building, and now has 183 students from

2-year-old pre-K through eighth grade. The

two-story structure just off Ga. Highway 74 north

was built to accommodate 300, and is equipped

with a gym, a multi-purpose room that serves as

an assembly-hall, chapel and cafeteria, and a

computer lab that every child in the school gets

to use at least weekly.

According to

Stuckert, the congregation opted to put the

establishment and building of a school ahead of a

sanctuary. The church began as the vision of five

people, he said, and has grown to a baptized

membership of 212. Worship services are conducted

in the gym.

The building's

mortgage is $5 million, Stuckert said. Borrowed

from the denomination's national office, it is

being paid off by students' tuition and gifts of

the congregation.

And yes, Stuckert

said, the school does offer congregation members

discounts on its $4,400 annual tuition for

full-day kindergarten through eighth, but that

difference is made up by the congregation itself.

Add to tuition an

application fee, a non-refundable fee of $250 for

books and supplies, plus the purchase of

uniforms, and most St. Paul families have to

weigh carefully the cost of a religious education

- especially considering that some have more

than one school-aged child.

"Limited

financial assistance is available," Stuckert

said, "depending on how much is contributed

to the [scholarship] fund."

Can one assume that

the principal would support a voucher system that

returns state school tax money to parents who

choose a church school?

"We'd have to

look at that," Stuckert said cautiously,

"depending on whether it was coming from a

source such as gambling."

Such as

lottery-based revenue? The principal hastened to

state that this is his own viewpoint and the

congregation might not agree about state funding.

"That's personal," he said.

"That's just me." His denomination is

known for its conservative positions on issues

more easily accepted by the larger Evangelical

Lutheran Church in America.

The Rev. Ron

Janssen, pastor of the church, has an office in

the building and is obviously well-known to

students as he shows a visitor through the

facility before school starts. They greet him

with smiles and hugs, occasionally teasing, and

apparently are comfortable with his use of a

wheelchair.

He shows off the

cozy library and a computer lab where every child

in the school gets hands-on experience at least

once a week. In one hall, a graphic exhibit of

life-sized anatomical drawings explains the human

body's various systems. All in all, however, the

halls here are plainer than at Huddleston -

but it is a large building and so far houses

fewer students.

Outdoors, the

facility's newness shows too. Playing fields are

not completed, there is no schoolyard flagstaff,

and grass does not yet entirely hide construction

scars. The congregation's priorities were to give

the students a place to learn until time -

and money - allow for the addition of less

critical amenities.

Classrooms are

larger than at Huddleston; plans call for a

maximum of 20 students per class. At present,

some have as few as 12.

Besides an

unstructured daily recess, there are phys ed

classes from kindergarten to eighth grade and an

after-school intramural sports program for third

through eighth. Music is taught in each

classroom, but a contract with an outside

corporation provides band after school.

The most

significant difference, not surprisingly, is that

religion is just as routine a course at St. Paul

as English and science, and is required each

year. Janssen says, however, that any minister is

welcome to come in and teach religion to children

of his or her denomination in lieu of the

Lutheran courses.

On a recent

morning, as students are beginning to arrive,

Stuckert tosses a handful of drawings on a table

in the office. Delivered the day before to cheer

patients at Fayette Community Hospital, they were

rejected by the hospital, he says ruefully,

because they were "too religious."

In Sarah Haupt's

room, her fifth-grade class of 15 gathers in a

corner discussing how people get along, what real

friends do or don't do, and that differences

among people should not make them less valued.

The kids wear school uniforms - blue-plaid

skirts and cotton shirts on the girls, blue or

yellow polo shirts for the boys, except on chapel

day when they must wear ties.

St. Paul's faculty

is Lutheran, with one exception, a member of Holy

Trinity Catholic Church. Haupt, daughter of a New

Jersey pastor and a graduate of an LC-MS college

in Illinois, is in her first year of teaching.

She moves with poise; the atmosphere in her room

is calm and cheerful.

With no intercom,

each class holds devotions four mornings a week.

Pledging allegiance to the flag appears to be

optional: no flag is visible in the fifth-grade

room.

Today is Wednesday

and the entire student body convenes for chapel.

Members of the St. Paul Newspaper Club present a

light-hearted exercise in laying out a newspaper,

in this case, "The Heavenly Herald."

The student body

hears Scripture read, sings a hymn or two, and is

led in prayer for safety during daily activities

and class trips. Special thanks is given for a

student who is recovering from surgery. A few

swinging feet notwithstanding, the students are

attentive. Chapel over, it's back to the

classroom.

Haupt's class

finished fractions recently, although she

explains that the curriculum circles back

frequently to review skills already learned.

Today they would begin the metric system; their

progress will be evaluated by a series of timed

tests.

The language and

social studies lesson focuses on Alaska and how

life there has changed in the past century. In

comparing life-styles of early Alaskans with

those of the present, Haupt's fifth-graders are

asked to read critically, to identify conflict

and resolution, to interpret, and to project what

the outcome will be.

One student

protested when he read that Alaskans killed seals

for food, fur and oil. Another challenged him:

"You eat hamburgers, don't you?"

The first lad

hesitated only a moment before responding,

"Yeah, but I don't like cows. I like

seals."

People have to make

choices according to their circumstances, Haupt

interjects. "Neither life-style is better,

just different."

A spelling drill

begins, with Haupt dictating at least 30 compound

words: chalkboard, throughout, starry-eyed,

grapefruit, furthermore. Vocabulary words were

based on the reading lesson, and included tidal

flat, precarious, tundra, delicacy and ptarmigan.

There is a

noticeable range of levels in this class. Some

hands seem permanently elevated; others fiddle

restlessly, their owners appearing uncertain

about what's going on around them.

With so small a

student population, it would be impractical to

have separate classes for advanced or slower

students but, Haupt says, a few students move up

or down to other grades each day according to

their specific needs.

While the rooms and

halls of St. Paul are not adorned with religious

art, this school unmistakably has a Christian

core. Anyone who has grown up in a mainstream

Protestant Sunday School will feel very much at

home here. The emphasis is clearly Lutheran in

its focus on grace and what God has done for

God's people.

A parent who wants

his child to get religious or Biblical training

in addition to standard academics will find that

St. Paul draws on a long tradition of

conservative Christian education. Its few

shortcomings appear related to its own very brief

history which, of course, time will correct.

Next

week: A look inside Our Lady of Victory Catholic

School in Tyrone.

<!--

-----------