Mr. Edward Ristau has been an educator for 18 years and began teaching at Bethany in 2002. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in Elementary Education and Music Education from Concordia University, Chicago, Illinois. He earned a Masters of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio.  Mr. Ristau is also licensed as an Intervention Specialist [K-12], Gifted and Talented Education.

     He previously taught for the Maple Heights City Schools, where he was Director of Choral Music at West Junior High School and Maple Heights High School. He additionally taught at Lakewood Lutheran School where he focused on Elementary Education (grades 5-8), was the Director of Choral Music (grades 5-8), and coordinated the Gifted Education program (grades 3-8).

     Mr. Ristau is a member of the National Education Association, the Lutheran Education Association, the National Association of Gifted Children, the Ohio Association of Gifted Children, and the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Mr. Edward Ristau - Seventh Grade

We praise God for the blessings He provides for us through our ability to develop the academic, spiritual, and emotional growth of our students. 

With a team-taught, departmentalized setting in the BLS Middle School, we look everyday to afford our students a constructive, Christian setting by nurturing their affective and cognitive progress.  We provide a learning environment that incorporates differentiated strategies to accommodate individual pace, depth, and breadth.  These opportunities will encourage and develop creative and critical thinking, provide practice in problem solution, and develop responsibility to self and others as consistent with the example emulated by Christ.