Learning Together

With only 54 students enrolled, West Michigan Lutheran High School is 3rd (or one of the) smallest traditional, and only Lutheran, high school in Kent County. With a strong emphasis on education and a close community, students learn to integrate their faith with everyday life. With smaller classroom sizes, teachers are able to focus on each student individually. Kristine Angers, the school’s English teacher and play director, said “As a teacher here at WMLHS, I love that I know my students and can help each and every one of them succeed not only in high school but in life as well.” Students experience the advantages of a small school as a close-knit community and the unique opportunities that it brings. Rachel Bahr, junior, says “West Michigan Lutheran has opportunity. You have the opportunity to get help one on one with teachers. And you have the opportunity to learn about the Bible.” Students, staff, and teachers display a genuine friendship and drive to succeed in light of their faith.

The Rev. David Fleming, from Kentwood, speaks at Celebrate, an event for parents to come to West Michigan Lutheran High School and view students art and spend time together as faculty, students, and parents.  The school emphasizes the Christian faith both in and outside the classroom. 

(From left to right) Garret Harder, senior from Kentwood,Maggie Mielczaek, art teacher from Jenison, and Flora Bellouard, senior foreign exchange student from France,work together to assemble a large mosaic of the school’s mascot.  Once finished, the mosaic will be put on the outside wall of the high school.

Christina Branch, senior, from Kentwood, places a bit of white tile in the school's mascot mosaic at Celebrate.  Students and parents finished the mosaic during the event.

 

The Rev. David Fleming, from Kentwood, helps Davon McKinney, sophomore from Kentwood, find his place in the reading in class.  Fleming is the religion teacher at West Michigan Lutheran High School.

 

 

Students sit in Steven Thompson’s American history class. Thompson, a Kentwood resident, enjoys the friendships he has the opportunity to have with his students, saying, “What you see is what you get.”

Students eat lunch in the auditorium at West Michigan Lutheran High School.  All of the students fit on the auditorium's stage.  The room also serves as the school's gymnasium.

West Michigan Lutheran High School senior Brandon Sinner, of Kentwood, receives a blessing from the Rev. James Roemke, a teacher at the high school, on Wednesday, March 9, Ash Wednesday.  Ashes are mixed with myrrh and olive oil and the paste is used to draw a cross on the forehead, reminding students of their mortality and sin, but also Christ's sacrifice.

 (From left to right) Sarah Stowe and Kamaria Jacobs, sophomores from Wyoming, share their history textbook to find the answer to a question.

(From left to right) Sarah Lawrence, science teacher from Kentwood, helps Katherine Gervais, senior from Kentwood, and Oliver Holbrook, junior from Kentwood, as they work on their biology experiment.  Gervais and Holbrook are the only two students in the school’s Advanced Placement biology class.

Uncle Sam decorates Steven Thompson’s social studies classroom.  Thompson says he likes that West Michigan Lutheran High School gives him the opportunity help students, giving a “push to those needing a push.”  The school’s goal is that all students not only do the best that they can, but that they also have the opportunity to attend college.

 

Andrew Schipper, sophomore from Wyoming, sits while finishing his homework during the lunch period.  The students are greeted each morning with a flag bearing the school’s verse for the year.  This year’s verse, Jeremiah 29:11, which says “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, '“plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'”