National Lutheran

School Accreditation

Florida Department of 

Children & Families     

Gold Seal Accredited

Southern Association of Colleges and Schools

Council on Accreditation and School Improvement

In 1956 St. Mark's Lutheran Church established a school comprised of a kindergarten department. Today, our school consists of programs for one-year-olds, two-year-old, three-year-olds, a four-year-old pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and an Enrichment Center. The purpose of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church School is to provide a Christ-centered environment for living and learning so that students may find in Christ Jesus identity, purpose, and power for their lives.

St. Mark's Lutheran Church School is maintained and operated by St. Mark's Lutheran Church as an expression of its conviction that all education is best conducted in a setting in which faith in Jesus Christ is the focal point of life and influences all learning. St. Mark's Lutheran Church School is affiliated with an international system of Lutheran elementary and secondary schools associated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, some 2,100 in number. These are not private schools but parochial schools in service to the church, providing Christian education for God's children. Our school, therefore, is an extension of the church to help “train up a child in the way he should go.” (Proverbs 22:6)

St. Mark's Lutheran Church School is fully accredited, meeting the requirements of The Department of Education of the State of Florida and the standards of The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod through the Task Force on Accreditation of the Florida–Georgia District. St. Mark’s is internationally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Council on Accreditation and School Improvement (SACS CASI) and the National Lutheran School Accreditation (NLSA). In addition, St. Mark's is the recipient of the Gold Seal Accreditation by the Florida Department of Children and Families.

We believe that every person is a special creation of God the Father, redeemed by Jesus Christ to be His own, sought and nurtured by the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament.

We believe that every person is born into a broken relationship with God and with others. By nature, we continue sinfully to live in this broken relationship. But by God’s grace, a new life of devotion and service is offered to each of us through faith in Christ. By the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, as part of God’s forgiven and forgiving community, we will grow in faith and mature in our relationship to God and to each other. (Ephesians 4:15-16)

The Lord has given the Church the command to use every means available, every gift He has bestowed on His people, to minister to the whole person, to the whole Church in the world, and to the changing secular community in which we live. As ministers of the Word, we strive to address and meet the spiritual, intellectual, emotional, social, physical, and aesthetic needs of the children placed in our care and their families. (I Corinthians 12:27, 28; 14:12; and I Peter 4:10, 11) Christian education is one way we can become aware of these temporal and spiritual needs and learn to minister with others to those needs. (I Timothy 3:14-17) Christian education is dynamic. It is the power of the Holy Spirit, working through the Word and His people, to bring the Good News of God’s love to all people.

The purposes of Christian education are to teach the Christian faith through instruction in God’s Word and to provide an environment for Christian living through quality and experiential learning activities. Working with parents, the Lutheran school has the potential to be the most effective means of Christian education. Moreover, the Lutheran school is a witness to the greater community of the love and concern of Christ’s Church for the salvation and well-being of all people everywhere.