St. Augustine's Parish Day School closed its doors as a result of the arson fire which destroyed the gothic wooden church on March 9th, 1966. The incendiary devices which started the blaze had been set in such a way as to hurt the children who should have been in the sanctuary for worship that morning. By God's mercy, the children had been running late that day and no lives were lost; no children injured. But the school could not survive so direct an assault and when the new sanctuary was dedicated on October 28, 1967, the school was no more.

In time, what had been St. Augustine's School would become a new secular school: Crossroads. Crossroads would be at St. A's for a quarter of a century, only leaving following the completion of their new lower school campus on Olympic Blvd. In 1997, the Westside Waldorf School replaced Crossroads and began their own process of growth and maturing and now, nearly 10 years later, they are moving toward the next stage in their development: their own permanent site on Sunset Blvd. in the Palisades. Twice now, St. Augustine's has been a suitable site for incubating new schools.

But as Waldorf has been working toward moving on, the Vestry has over the last two years and more wrestled with whether or not this is the only or best use of that space. At one juncture, as the initial lease with Waldorf was expiring; we were engaged in negotiation with a yoga school which wanted the site. As intriguing as that was, the negotiations failed primarily due to the high cost of the extensive renovations envisioned by the yoga instructor and real concerns on our part over their ability to manage their obligations to us. Once that deal fell through, we were approached by Waldorf for an extension of their lease, which was granted.

At that time, to explore all options, we sought proposals from a number of development firms. Each of these proposals envisioned demolishing the existing school building and extensive reconstruction which would have resulted in a dramatic change to the character of our courtyard and the development of much of the first floor of the newly built building for lease to a retail store consistent with downtown zoning. In short, if the space was not being used for a school or wholly for church purposes, it likely would need to be a commercial venture which would contribute to the city planner's hopes to extend the Promenade to 4th Street as well. And while it would be desirable to have the school building solely for church use, since the 1970's, we have been dependent on the school lease for a significant portion of our budget. Such cuts in our budget, should they be unavoidable due to our inability to lease the property, would mean letting go staff. At over $160,000 a year, the loss of personnel would be dramatic.

This month, the Vestry was approached by the Delphi Academy, which is presently located at Pilgrim Lutheran Church. A new school just three years old, with present enrollment of just 25 students, the plans for a Lutheran High School at Pilgrim makes this the right time for Delphi to move and hopefully, like Crossroads and Waldorf before it, to grow.

While negotiations have yet to begin in earnest on this day, May 11th, the prospective new tenants have indicated that they will raise between $100,000 and $200,000 to renovate, at their expense, the school and the 5th Street playground. In addition, they have offered to, as a gift; refurbish our courtyard (planting new sod, flowers etc.) Even more significantly, we will get back for our use three classrooms presently leased to Waldorf (the Martin Luther King and Francis and Clare rooms on the upper level over the church offices and the Mary Magdalene Room off Pierson Hall) and Pierson Hall itself, which has been used daily by the present school. Indeed, Delphi's plans are to limit their operations to the school building proper for a rent which will be, overtime, comparable to the present lease, adjusted for less space used. Finally, while the Waldorf School has an enrollment of nearly 140 children, the Delphi Academy hopes to grow to no more than 80 – slightly more than half of the size (and resultant wear and tear) of the Westside Waldorf School.

In the interest of full disclosure, and to avoid rumor and gossip, you should be aware that the Delphi Academy uses teaching principles which grew out of the writings of L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the Church of Scientology. But the school does not teach any religion and doesn't evangelize or proselytize either students or parents. And so although people may have strong feelings about scientology – or at least what they've heard about it in the popular culture – we are not leasing space to a church or to a religious school but to a secular academy. The experience of the Pilgrim Church with the Delphi Academy has been, in their own words, "a pleasure." We are told that the teachers are warm hearted, generous of spirit and that they keep good track of the children and that they have been responsible tenants.

As a congregation, we have described our mission as "including all people." Such a task is easy when the people in question look like us and come from the same socio-economic and racial/ethnic classes. It's much more difficult (and therefore more real) when folks are different. Even harder still when their religious values differ from our own as may be the case with some – but certainly not all – of the teachers.

But at the same time, we can not be expected to violate our own values. We have therefore asked (and been assured) that the school has a non-discriminatory policy and practice and children from all backgrounds, including children of same sex couples, are welcomed to enroll.