High School

High School

Information Nights

In the 2018-19 academic year we hosted the following four New Student Information Nights:

Enrollment & Graduation

The High School campus enrollment as of June 30, 2019 was 461, which is a 0.875% increase compared to 2017-2018, and breaks out as follows:

Graduation

Our 2018-2019 graduating class totaled 108 students. The key points of our Graduation Survey, completed in June 2109, were:

Faculty/Staff Updates

  • Dr. Melissa Morgan resigned from her role on Faculty as Pfiefer Memorial Chair of Music to move to the University of Regina and pursue an extraordinary opportunity in choral music. Cynthia Peyson-Wahl was hired as Melissa’s replacement on an interim basis. A search for a permanent replacement will begin in January 2020.
  • Paulette Hubbs retired from her position as interim Librarian after five years. We welcomed back Brittany Smoliak in August 2019 after a leave of absence.
  • Kaia Anderson resigned from her role as Director of ESL to be married and move to Hong Kong with her new husband. We are excited to be working with Greg Smith, who has played an integral role in our ESL Department since 2016, and was appointed as our new Director effective July 2019.
  • Mark Leupold, a dear and treasured colleague, passed away on June 21, 2019 while faithfully serving the High School during a maternity leave. Plans to honour his memory and legacy are being considered.
  • Nancy Ostime and Brendan Stevens, both retirees, assisted the English department for the 2018-2019 academic year as we experienced higher enrollment.
  • Erin Woods and Andrea Bollinger returned to Luther after maternity leaves in May and August, respectively.
  • Jessica Pultz finished her first year equally dividing her time between teaching and in her new role as Student Success Coordinator. This has allowed us to fill a much needed void in support of our growing and diverse number of scholarship students.
  • Hilary Schroeder began the important work of increasing international mindedness in September 2018.  She will continue to examine our practices as we seek to increase the sense of inclusion our international student population experiences.
  • Andrea Barrientos joined the Admissions department in August 2019 as our International Student Recruitment Coordinator. We anticipate her work will increase our international student enrolment as we expand our recruitment efforts to new marketplaces in both Europe and Asia.
  • Joel Beres began work on his Masters of Education in September 2018. His studies continue this year.
     

Initiatives

New Initiatives

MySchoolSask
We have joined with nineteen other divisions in the MySchoolSask pilot, a new provincial student data system. In August 2019, we will begin phasing into MySchoolSask with faculty and staff training thanks to the dedication of Academic Vice-Principal Renee Wilkinson and faculty member Lindsay Braul. Ideally, we will make a full transition by February 2020. OSA will be kept first as a mirror system and then as an historical record system. 

Principal Coffee Chats
This past year Principal, Mark Anderson, continued meeting with our faculty to discuss relevant issues affecting our students such as balancing studies with co-curricular life, student workload and honour roll recognition. These informal meetings were attended and received well.

Orange Shirt Day
On September 27, 2018, as part of our commitment to Truth and Reconciliation, we held a memorable Chapel. Special guest Mr. Evan Whitestar, who does consulting work for Mother Teresa Middle School, spoke to our community and then along with some MTMS students who drum (the Buffalo Boys) provided music and dance.

Continuing Initiatives

IB Programme
Based on the main recommendations found in IB’s response to our five year review submission, we have developed plans to improve our formalized collaborative planning amongst IB Diploma teachers, increase our in-class time requirements for higher level French and ensure professional development is in place for the remaining faculty who require IB training. 

Our efforts to truly educate the whole student and implement the IB CAS (Creativity, Action, Service) Model resulted in a school-wide Service Day and four Wellness Days this past year.

  • On Thursday, May 2, 2019 the entire school (employees and students) engaged in our third annual service day. Students were free to choose from approximately fifteen different service opportunities, both here on our campus and throughout Regina. Afterwards, students were provided with a dedicated time to formally reflect on their experiences and our community recognized the value of service at two Chapel celebrations towards the end of May. Thanks to Vice-Principal Student Life Shawn Stieb and his committee for championing this worthwhile endeavor.
  • Our High School employees and students enjoyed the benefits of four Wellness Days. Athletic Director Troy Casper spearheaded this initiative enabling our community to choose from as many as twelve varied activities to participate in for an hour each time. We plan to expand our Wellness Days to six activities for the upcoming school year.

School Messenger
In November, Luther participated once again in an OURSchool Survey, a Ministry of Education approved data collection.  Results were shared with SLT and the Board.  A subsequent survey is planned for October 2019.

OURSchool Survey
In November, Luther participated once again in an OURSchool Survey, a Ministry of Education approved data collection.  Results were shared with SLT and the Board.  A subsequent survey is planned for October 2019.

LIT and Musical
For another year, over half of the student body and numerous staff (with special thanks  to Troy Casper, Melissa Morgan, and Nancy Ostime) gave so generously of their time and did an extraordinary job of organizing and operating our two flagship events: LIT and Musical.

  • The Wizard of Oz ran for five very successful performances with more than 1,500 guests attending. 
  • LIT, thanks to Tournament Director Troy Casper, continued in its grand tradition and commitment to running full female and male eight team draws.

Security
A doorbell entry system was introduced at the Royal Street doors on the High School campus in September 2018.  It has added a sense of peace and security for all and on at least a few occasions prevented an undesirable guest from entering. Digital enhancements to the system are planned for 2019-2020.
 

High School Chaplaincy

Pastor David Peterson has now completed five years of service as LCHS Chaplain. He continues to serve on the Senior Leadership Team, attends Board meetings, and is sponsor teacher for the Gay Straight Alliance and Peer Support. Pastor Peterson also helps with the musical.

For the past year he has taught Ethics 30 and for the first time Ethics 20. He also substituted for an extended time for Mrs. Nelson’s Ethics 9 class. These experiences enabled him to see a wider view of the ethics curriculum.

Over the past year we have had a variety of chapel guests including alumni Andrea Ludwig, Austin Josephson and Craig Wilson. Dovetailing with Founders’ Day we had Dr. Don King as our chapel speaker. We had four students do chapel – most memorably Shakthi Kumar who gave a presentation on providing needed clothing to the poor and homeless. We had a few teacher-led chapels including Leesha Nikkanen and Mark Becker.

From outside of the community we had Mr. Scott Thomas who was a father of one of the boys lost in the Humboldt Broncos tragedy the previous year. His chapel was very moving and he spoke on forgiveness. This was the finest chapel I have seen to date.
As we continued to emphasize wellness, we had three talks by our counselors Bryan Belous and Colleen Wilkinson which were strategically placed at high stress times in the school year. We also had our Peer Support initiative to bring in two therapy dogs which were very well received by our students – and received a pet blessing from the chaplain. Peer Support also had a workshop on the Myers-Briggs Personality Typing and on suicide prevention (SafeTalk) in November during midterms which was attended by about a dozen students.

This year there were several chapels given over to service day planning and its subsequent two celebration chapels as well as seasonal liturgical chapels for Thanksgiving, Advent, Easter etc. Pastor Peterson was able to meet a number of clergy from different traditions during the Service Day Houses of Worship tour and will continue to extend invitations for them to speak in chapel.

The Chapel Committee continued to assist Pastor Peterson in vetting of student chapels and in creating better standards for students investigating sharing in chapel. They will be meeting to develop more themes for the coming year as well as discuss possibilities and troubleshoot problems in chapel.
 

Alumni Relations, Development & Communications

The Alumni Relations, Development & Communications Office at the High School supports and promotes the mission and vision of Luther College though engaging and creating meaningful relationships with constituents – alumni, parents, grandparents, board members, staff, faculty and donors – and by securing financial support for the College.

Highlights from this year include:

Fundraising

  • Successful completion of the A Time To Build Capital Campaign – a historic campaign with over 700 donors that raised over $13.5 million dollars. The capital campaign allowed for the building of new facilities – the Semple Gymnasium, Student Commons and fine arts wing – and the renovation of our legacy gym – now the Merlis Belsher Heritage Centre.
  • Fundraising totals for the year were $1,203,818.28 donated to LCHS from alumni, churches, current parents, faculty & staff, foundations, past parents, friends and the Board of Regents.
  • New scholarships were established: Central Evangelical Lutheran Church Bursary and the Vic & Candice Husak-Grotsky Family Tuition Bursary.
  • An SRC fundraiser was held for the first time, raising $7,225 from parents.

Parent Engagement

  • A parent fundraiser – “Totally Throwback Dance” raised $29,000 and engaged our parent community as organizers and attendees.
  • New parent engagement tools were developed including a printed Parent Handbook and a tuition brochure.
  • Results of the annual parent survey showed 83% of parents indicated they were satisfied or very satisfied with LCHS.

Alumni Relations

  • Mac Hird, Class of 2007, spoke to our students in our annual alumni chapel address about the path to success. Mac is an assistant to MP Ralph Goodale.
  • Alumni networking events continue to be a main source of connecting alumni to the school and to each other. This year’s events included Homecoming, gatherings in Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, and Saskatoon, an alumni hockey game in Regina, a Christmas party for young alumni in Regina, the LIT alumni game, and alumni dinners in Hong Kong and Korea.

Communications

  • Implemented SchoolMessenger – a tool for parent communication that allows the school to send email, text and voice calls.
  • Discontinued the lit.ca website and incorporated it into www.luthercollege.edu.
  • Two issues of Luther College’s alumni magazine, The Luther Story, were distributed by mail and email to an average of 7,671 alumni, faculty, staff, parents, and friends of the College. The Fall 2018 issue featured alumni profiles, LCHS Homecoming 2018, Thank You to Dr. Hampton and Dr. Greifenhagen, welcome to new faculty and staff, LCUR kitchen facelift, LCHS donor report, new LCHS & LCUR scholarships, Board of Regents thank you, and on campus and class notes. The Spring 2019 issue featured alumni profiles, 2018 Founders’ Day Dinner and Luther College Distinguished Service Award recipients –  Dr. Don King and Dr. Art Krentz, LCUR faculty & staff serving the community, donor profile on Bob (HSU’56) & Violet (Krell) (HS’54, HSU’55) Jacob, and on campus and class notes.