Eagle Express

St. John Lutheran School exists to nurture children in faith and intellect, equipping them for Christian lives of service.

"Be kind and compassionate to one another,

forgiving each other, just as God in Christ has forgiven us."

Ephesians 4:32

This past weekend our prayer to have a graduate of Martin Luther College (MLC) assigned to us was answered! Mr. Matthew Curtis will be moving to our area this summer and joining our faculty at St. John as our new 7th-8th grade teacher.

Matthew was born and raised near Atlanta, GA. He is the youngest of five children. He has some experience with being a called worker in our school system since he has a brother and a sister that are currently teaching in our WELS schools. His mother is also a preschool teacher at our WELS church in Sharpsburg, GA.

After being homeschooled for the elementary grades, he attended an area public school for his middle and high school years. He has just completed four years of training at our synod's school (MLC) in New Ulm, MN, and he comes to us with a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education degree and a state teaching license. He has training experience with middle/upper elementary grades and even did student teaching at the Kindergarten level.

Matthew is planning to stop by and visit sometime over our lunch hour tomorrow. Hopefully, many of the students will get a chance to say hello and welcome him. He will then be heading out and eventually making his way to his current home near Atlanta. Moving plans will solidify during June, and we will be happy to officially welcome him to St. John later this summer as we prepare for the 2025-2026 school year.

With Matthew now being assigned to us, and with Celia Tucek having accepted our call as our 5th-6th grade teacher, the Lord has blessed us with a full teaching staff for next year. We thank our Lord for this blessing. Please keep these two individuals in your prayers as they make their transition and begin serving us in our ministry at St. John!

THANK YOU so much for the outpouring of generosity and appreciation you gave during teacher and staff appreciation week! It was an extra special treat to get to eat lunch together as a faculty and staff. Thank you to everyone who took time out of their busy schedules to either watch a classroom, drop-off treats, or contribute to the week.

We are very thankful for you and all that you do to help support us and the education of all of the children at St. John. We could not do this without you and your support and encouragement!

Thank you to all who helped us celebrate our 2025 8th-grade graduates and help say farewell to the Wintrones this past Sunday! The children did a great job singing and the fellowship time afterwards was wonderful. We wish God's blessings to our 8th grade class and to the Wintrones!

On Friday, May 23, we will host our last day of school games and picnic lunch. We will be in need of many parent volunteers to help things go smoothly. Please follow the sign-up link below and see how you can help out. Here are specific areas we still especially need help:

• Desserts or fruit

• Picnic sides

• Games help (we have enough signed up to run all the games, but more help is always appreciated)

Last Day of School Signup

If you would like to volunteer for a game station, here is a document describing the games. If you’d like to run a specific game, please indicate that when you sign up. Please let Mr. Wintrone (justin.wintrone@stjohnslib.com) know if you have any questions about the games.

Thank you for considering how you can help make our last day go smoothly!

Please note that there is NO after school care on the last day of school.

We opened the school year with our Lord, and we will close the school year with our Lord! Join us Friday morning at 8:20 for our Closing Service. The offering collected during this service will go toward our Tuition Grant Fund. All parents are invited to join us!

As we begin making plans for the 2025-2026 school year, we would like your feedback concerning hot lunch. At the end of this year we tested out the Kiddos company with hot lunch offerings on four different Fridays. Would continuing with this company be a good idea? Would something else be desirable? We would appreciate having you take a moment to fill out this survey to help us plan our best option for offering some type of limited hot lunch program next school year. Whether your child(ren) tried out these hot lunches this school year or not, we would love your input!

Please fill out the survey by Tuesday, May 27. Thank you for your input!

If your student has medicine(s) in the office please be sure to pick those up by or on the last day of school. Feel free to email: office@stjohnslib.com or call: (847) 362-4424 if you have any questions, thank you!

Please take some time to look through the lost and found. Items are located on a table by the school entrance doors. Everything leftover at the end of the school year will be washed and donated.

We soon have a great opportunity to reach out to our community, but we need your help! We will have a booth set up at Libertyville Days. We need volunteers to staff our booth. Friday and Saturday time slots go from 10:00am through 8:00pm, and the time slots on Sunday go from Noon to 4:15pm. You can choose one or more time slots in one-hour increments. We encourage two or more participants for each time slot so invite your friends!

Sign-up sheets are located at both church / school entryways, and another option is to sign up online. Mr. Retzlaff can email you a link if you would prefer to sign up online (david.retzlaff@stjohnslib.com). There are written instructions to help you navigate your way. Grab your family and friends and have some fun while helping promote our church and school!

We will also be participating in the Libertyville Day parade! We will have a camping theme with a float to help promote this year’s VBS theme. We are in need of a couple of items to make this work: a pickup truck that can pull a trailer, a flatbed trailer, and float decorations. If you are able to help with these items or help decorate the float, please contact Paul Massey (Paul.Massey@stjohnslib.com) or Brooke Gast (brooke.gast@stjohnslib.com). We will be looking to decorate the float the day before the parade, so stay tuned for more information. We will also need people to simply march along with the float. Participants can wear their St. John swag or dress up as campers. We will meet in the St. John parking lot at 9:00am on Saturday, June 14. We will then walk over to the staging area at the train station. The parade starts at 10:00am. Thank you in advance for your help!

Guide kids on the ultimate Alaskan adventure where northern lights glow over majestic mountains, racing rivers, and glistening glaciers. As kids trek the tundra, they’ll explore how easy it is to lose sight of what’s true in our wild world today. Pointing them toward Jesus, True North VBS shows them that he is a faithful friend and a loving Savior that we can always trust. He’s our True North!

More details, registration, and volunteer sign-up can be found here.

Families who are registered for the 2025/2026 school year will receive the occasional Summer Express newsletter throughout the summer. These newsletters are meant to make the 2025/2026 school year easier for everyone. Thank you and have a wonderful summer!

This year, our school chapel offerings are supporting the ministry of Jesse and Emily Rider, who are missionaries in Southeast Asia. They are in their second year there. They are both graduates of Martin Luther College, our synod’s worker training school. Our offerings will be used directly to help them spread God’s Word to those who need to hear it in Southeast Asia. Thank you to everyone who helped support our mission offering! We ended the year with chapel offerings totallying $2,070.10.

(The offering collected during the Closing Service will go toward our Tuition Grant Fund.)

Friday, May 23: Last Day of School

• Closing Service
• Preschool and Kindergarten Graduation
• Picnic and Games
• 11:30 a.m. Dismissal

Email: info@stjohnslib.com
Website: stjohnslib.com
Location: 501 West Park Avenue, Libertyville, IL, USA
Phone: (847)362-4424
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stjohnslib/