A very Lutheran love for teaching

These days many of the nation's parochial schools are struggling. Yet a 4-year-old Lutheran school for students with severe social and emotional issues is thriving — in one of the poorest areas of the South Bronx in New York City.

The New LIFE (Lutheran Initiative for Enrichment) School is run by Lutheran Social Services of New York for the ELCA Metropolitan New York Synod and the Atlantic District of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod. The school makes a difference in the lives of middle- and high-school students otherwise failed by New York City schools.

An unidentified student makes a model of tentacles at The New LIFE , a school run by Lutheran Social Services of New York.

"We're chipping away at a concrete wall, as these students have been failed over and over again," said Christine Connell, LSSNY executive director for education services. Failed so badly, she said, that many of them couldn't even read when they were referred to The New LIFE School.

As a contractor for the New York City Department of Education, The New LIFE School operates a middle school with 96 students and a high school with a capacity for 264. The high school has a newly renovated building on Eagle Avenue. Middle-schoolers have classrooms at a former LCMS school across town.