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St. John's Lutheran School is a private, Lutheran high school in Elgin, Illinois. It is located in the St. John's Evangelical Church and competes athletically in the Fox Valley Lutheran Athletic Conference.

St. John's Lutheran School was established in 1866 by the Evangelical Lutheran St. Johannes Society. It was named after John the Evangelist.

History
Evangelical Lutheran St. Johannes Society of Elgin, Kane County, Illinois, (later known as St John’s Evangelical Lutheran Church), was established on July 4, 1859. In 1866, a small wooden building was purchased and became the first school building with the pastor serving as the teacher in this one room structure. This building sat near the northeast corner of Spring and Division streets, where the church annex office building is now located. The current church is still situated on the same block, just a bit further north.

Children in the first school had no desks; instead they knelt on the floor, using their chairs as desks when practicing writing or arithmetic. For reasons lost to history, the school was not used for two years from 1874- 1876 and the building was sold. A new pastor resurrected the school in 1876 with 27 students, holding school in the church. By 1878, there were 77 students and St. John’s issued a call for the first teacher. In 1884, a new brick building consisting of two classrooms was built. This structure is still in use as the northwest portion of the current building (administrative office area). In 1915, the building doubled in size with the addition of two more classrooms to the south. This addition is still in use as the southwest portion of the building (kindergarten and main hall area). The number of teachers increased as the building grew in size. In 1917, St John’s joined the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Kindergarten was added in 1946. Due to the explosive growth in population (over 250 students), in 1956 the congregation undertook extensive renovation and expansion of the school. In the school building, a lunch room, homemaking and shop classrooms were added on the lower level, two additional classrooms, a library, health room, faculty room and administrative offices were added on the first floor, and four classrooms and washrooms were added on the second floor. The main entrance was moved from the center of the west side of the building to the current location at the northwest corner.

A parish building was constructed at the same time; it was attached to the east side of the current church building. This building consisted of a social area on the lower level, gymnasium, kitchen, general purpose room and church office on the first floor, and on the second floor were washrooms, locker rooms and three classrooms. Also constructed was the tunnel between the buildings. All of these areas are still in use, but some have changed in purpose since homemaking and shop are no longer taught. A classroom, computer room, and science room now occupy some of those spaces. Staff increases also occurred at the time of renovation s.

Student Life
Battle of the Books is an extracurricular activity offered to fourth, fifth, and sixth graders who love to read. Participants are eligible to complete once a month against over 30 other teams from area private and public schools in the Battle of the Books competition sponsored by Gail Borden, Bartlett, and Poplar Creek Public Libraries. To prepare, our St. John’s team meets once a week to read and discuss books from a list provided by the local libraries. At the library meets, teams are then quizzed on content questions about the books they were to have read. While team scores are kept and winning teams are recognized, significant emphasis is placed on the fun of participation and the satisfaction that comes from reading good quality books.

All students in grades 5 – 8 have the opportunity to participate in the yearly Science Olympics, an exciting one day event hosted by Concordia University Chicago. Each year several hundred students from area Lutheran elementary schools come together to participate in this competition. Students work in either a partner or small group situation to design, test, and tweak their solutions to two different scientific challenges. Problem solving, critical thinking skills, and, most importantly, collaboration are key skills that are a focus of this extra-curricular activity.