The July devotion is now up on our website. It is written by Melanie Bowline, teacher at Faith Lutheran Middle School & High School, Las Vegas, NV, and titled Jesus is the One Direction. Click here to read it! Thank you, Melanie, for your encouragement of our educators for all they've done this past year, and for reminding us that Jesus guides us through the pressures we experience.

It has been reported that many of you have received phishing emails from accounts pretending to be from PSD leadership. If you have received an email from a Gmail account claiming to be from President Gibson or Rachel Klitzing, please report it as phishing and delete it. Please also note that all district email addresses end in @psd-lcms.org. We sincerely apologize for any confusion this has caused. In today’s world of technology, scams and phishing attempts are part of our reality and are impossible for us to prevent. It is important that we are all being vigilant and using our best judgment to help prevent ourselves from falling for these attacks.

Administrators, don't miss out on our annual Administrators Leadership Conference (ALC) Wednesday-Friday, July 21-23, 2021, at the Hyatt Indian Wells! This year’s theme is Refresh! based on Isaiah 43:18-19: “See, I am doing a new thing…”  For more information and to register, click here to be directed to the ALC page on the School Ministries website. New information has been added to the website, including a finalized schedule. Don't delay - register today!

This November, LEC will be held on-site at the JW Marriott Desert Springs! We are super excited about this! Our theme this year is Limitless from Ephesians 3:20-21. We look forward to a time of Spiritual Nurture, Professional Growth, and Fellowship. Your LEC Committee is focusing this year’s speakers and sessions into three specific topics: Mental Health, Digital Awareness, and Racial Relationships. Our mental health sessions will focus on caring for yourself and your students as we move forward. The screen time awareness sessions will focus on healthy ways to work with your students regarding screen time, setting healthy boundaries, and creative ways to work with necessary screen time. These session times will be geared toward early childhood through high school teachers and administrators. Tuesday our keynote speaker, Dr. John Nunes, will focus on the building and awareness of racial relationships in a healthy and God-pleasing manner. Your LEC Committee is working hard to create a wonderful experience as we come back together to celebrate being Lutheran educators! You won’t want to miss this year’s conference!

The cost for LEC this year will be $150 per person and hotel rooms will be $104 per night. Be sure to mark your school calendars for November 21-23 to allow for all of your staff to be able to attend and participate in the conference this year! It will be an extra special gathering to be sure!

The July TLC Grant application window is open! The TLC Grant is an educational grant on behalf of the Trinity Lutheran Church Educational Endowment Fund (Reseda, CA). This grant has been established as a gift to the Church for the continuation of excellent Lutheran education in the Pacific Southwest District. This is a competitive grant based on the strength of the application and is open to all schools, K-12. Since the inception of this grant in January 2016, $276,842 has been granted to 45 different schools in the district. You are encouraged to take advantage of this opportunity to enhance the education of your students!

Please click here to be directed to the application form. The deadline to submit your application is July 31. Recipients will be notified in mid-August.

Jr/Sr High School Educator      

We completed the Facilitators’ Academy last month in Seward, Nebraska. We worked hard, long and late to bring Season 13 participants an exciting, dynamic and intentional workshop curriculum focused on where we’ve been as educators and where we’re going. We are still accepting late registrations while schools determine their funding solutions and which teachers to send! For easy registration, please click here.

290 Number of TEC21 partner churches and schools in the U.S. and internationally, comprised of:

19 LCMS high schools

1 LCMS Concordia university

6 Philippine Lutheran Education Association schools

1 LCMS church (participating pastor; no associated school)

43,695 Students impacted

1,119 Teachers impacted

216 Cohorts gathered throughout the years

31 Cohorts in the 2021/2022 academic term

200+ Church workers gathering in cohorts in the 2021/2022 academic term

233 Teachers have earned graduate-level credit through Concordia University

17 LCMS districts served

Each week, prayers of thanksgiving and prayers for teachers, administrators, support staff, pastors, students, and families of the Lutheran schools, early childhood centers, and churches of the Pacific Southwest District are listed. To include names on the list, please send information to [email protected] by noon on Tuesday of each week.