New superintendent at MVL

School reorganizes

administration

By GUY PRIEL

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- A South Dakota man recently took the reins as the first superintendent at Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School.

Wayne Fischer, who built Great Plains Lutheran School in Watertown, S.D., from the ground up, was hired as a result of a reorganization of administration at MVL.

The MVL board recently voted to have a principal to handle inside workings of the school and to hire a superintendent to handle other matters, such as public relations, Fischer said.

"My overall job is to work with the vision and mission of the school, and make sure everything works toward that goal," he said.

His first job in education was as a public school teacher in South Dakota, following his graduation from Northern State University in Aberdeen.

He then decided to enter the ministry and enrolled at Bethany College in Mankato.

He worked at Wisconsin Lutheran School in Milwaukee, the largest high school in the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod with 1,000 students.

From there, he went to Watertown to help organize Great Plains Lutheran School, serving 60 students from Montana, Minnesota, and South Dakota.

"Having worked at the largest school and the smallest school, and then here, has been a challenge," Fischer said. "It allows for a better perspective."

In Watertown, there were 46 congregations served, whereas in New Ulm there are only 19 congregations, but ministry is the main focus, he said.

"That's important here," he said. "The work is ministry. That's what it's about. We are people in ministry who happen to be teachers. We are not teachers who happen to be in the ministry."

He does have a few connections with Minnesota besides his studies at Bethany College. He served as vicar in Minneapolis.

Fischer officially started at MVL on July 1. Because his family didn't arrive until the end of July, he spent the first few weeks traveling home on weekends. He currently lives in Nicollet, where his wife will spend some time working as an educational assistant at Nicollet Public Schools, in addition to working some at MVL.

"I can't buy a house until I sell my house in Watertown, and Nicollet was the place where I could rent a house," he said.

Out of three children, his son Mike is the only living at home. He will be a junior at MVL this fall.

"Transferring to a new school while in high school is not easy," Fischer said. "Along with other problems teen-agers face, he has a lot of adjustments to make, but he'll be OK."

He feels that each school has its own unique culture, which is where the challenge comes with the new position.

"It has mostly been a learning process for me," Fischer said. "Seeing how things are done at each school and what is different. My overall focus is to clarify the vision of the school and support it while serving a full range of constituents. And the test is how well are we doing that?"

He is excited about the new sign in front of the school. The sign,a gift from alumni, was installed during the summer to provide better visibility of the MVL campus.

Another exciting thing is an increase in the enrollment for the 2000-2001 school year. More than 80 freshmen are coming in this fall.

"My main goal now is to get in touch with the mission and move on from there," he said. "It was a tough decision to make, leaving the other school. It is a unique experience to build a school. We work on the call system, and this is what the Lord wanted me to do."

One thing the Watertown school and MVL have in common is that they were both started following the 1979 decision by the synod to close two preparatory schools. MVL opened that same year, and the process started to organize Great Plains, although the vision didn't become a reality until 1996.

School begins for freshmen on Monday, Aug. 28, with an abbreviated schedule and an afternoon of activities. School begins for all other students on Tuesday, Aug. 29.