St Stephen Lutheran School

St. Stephen Lutheran School is a wonderful choice for K-​8^th graders. It is a small Christian school with nurturing and enthusiastic teachers. All of our children have attended SSLS. The teachers strive to meet the individual needs of each student. Our last child is currently an 8^th grader at SSLS, and my daughter is in her final year of college. SSLS has prepared them to succeed; they are confident and excited about the next big step in their lives. As parents, my husband and I will greatly miss SSLS. For the past 18 years we have been a part of a very special school. We send a heartfelt THANK YOU to the teachers, pastor, and staff of SSLS. You have prepared our children well!

St. Stephen Lutheran School has been an absolute godsend for our family.
Our son has been attending SSLS starting in kindergarten. (Note: our older children have attended Monta Loma CEL program, Graham Middle School and Mountain View High School and my wife is a former educator).
When evaluating schools, we evaluated pretty much every public and private school in Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Los Altos. SSLS attracted us for a number of reasons:
1) a «small» school environment — only 6 children in my son’s class. He has absolutely thrived academically with ample attention to his needs.
2) offers tremendous enrichment opportunities — art, PE, music, field trips in addition to lots of reading (he’s reading books at a 2^nd to 3^rd grade level after only ½ a year of kindergarten), writing and math.
3) a supportive and values-​oriented Christian environment. While neither my wife nor I are Lutheran, we’ve welcomed the teachings our son has been exposed to.
4) mixed age environment — allows my son to play actively with older children who are bright, engaging, sweet and responsible older role models for him. He lives for playing ball with the older boys.
The best part of SSLS is the outcome to date — we have a child that is balanced, well-​adjusted, bright, curious, engaged, healthy and loves going to school every day. For his 6^th birthday party, he invited every single student (from his fellow kindergarteners to 8^th graders). This was a wonderful reflection of how welcome he feels about the other kids in his school and how engaged he is as part of special community. SSLS has contributed immensely to our son’s growth and has become an integral extension of our family.
While the school might not be for everyone, those looking for a unique environment would be well served to evaluate it as an option for their child.

We found St Stephen Lutheran School (SSLS) by word-​of-​mouth. Our oldest son started in first grade and our daughter in kindergarten. Recently (June 2011) we saw our daughter graduate from 8^th grade. Wow the time went by *so quickly!!!* Our youngest son will be in 5^th grade next school year.
SSLS is absolutely the finest school one could ever send their child (ren) to. The class size is small so each student can receive personalized attention. A big advantage of small class size is the ability to accommodate each student’s strengths (and weaknesses.) If a student is ahead or behind in something, you can work with the teachers to best address your student’s needs. (E.G., our son does well in math so as a fourth grader last year, he was in sixth grade math.)
As a result, SSLS is the next best thing to home schooling (some might say better since home schooling is not for everyone.) Most importantly, SSLS adheres to the tenants of the historic Christian faith. God was booted out of the public schools a long time ago (IMHO, much to the detriment of the kids) and that’s one of the huge advantages of private schools like SSLS. SSLS holds to the doctrines of grace and each teacher imparts biblical truth in their classrooms. You don’t have to be a believer yourself for your child to benefit from the rich heritage of Christianity.
Most importantly, and what sets Christianity apart from every other religion in the world, is that Christ’s tomb is empty (He has risen!) Our king Jesus Christ is alive and His presence is felt in a loving and caring environment that is Saint Stephen Lutheran School. I cannot more highly recommend SSLS. I could go on for several more pages about how great SSLS is and how my kids have benefitted, but this will have to suffice for now. If anyone has any questions, please don’t hesitate to call the school — everyone there is very nice and they would love to talk to you. The proof of my love for SSLS is that we have been there now for eight years and counting.

I went to St. Stephen Lutheran for 5 years (between 4^th and 8^th grade)
and I would not take back that experience for anything!
I looked forward to going to school because I learned in a fun way and was friends with everyone in the school. I think I got a more unique education there than I would have at a «normal» junior high being able to get more personal attention from the teachers (the Amazing Miss Pfieffer!) and a wide range of students.
I love the Christian education/​atmosphere and how it was carried out in the way teachers related to students and students related to each other!