She was the school’s first principal. She stayed 35 years.

Kris Austin always wanted to be a teacher. She never thought she would be a principal.

“I could have never imagined it, but God did,” she said.

The Port Washington resident retired at the end of this school year as head of Ozaukee Christian School, closing a 37-year career in education.

Thirty-five were at OCS, the school she founded because of her own family’s interest, and Austin has peace of mind that the work will continue, despite seeing a statistic that showed 60% of nonprofit organizations fail when the founder leaves.

“That shook me to my core,” she said.

Austin quickly got to work, starting teams for curriculum, professional development and assessment. She led some of the sessions before transferring to a support role, using skills she learned from her graduate school project in succession planning. She realizes that she helped build the foundation for others to later take over.

“I don’t have to be here,” she said. “That’s the way it’s meant to be. We lovingly refer to them as team OCS. It’s a team sport. Always has been, always will be.”

The roots of that team started decades ago, sending Austin on a roller coaster of roles and locations.

When the oldest of Austin’s three boys was 3, she couldn’t find a school that fit what she and her husband were looking for.

Their family’s church, Portview Church in Port Washington, passed a resolution to start a Christian school.

She willingly joined the committee and was quickly made chairman.

A study determined Portview wasn’t big enough to start its own school, but then the idea of a nondenominational school was introduced and Portview started looking for evangelical support in the area.

Austin joined the school board, but when an administrator couldn’t be found, she said, “I said I’ll pinch it for a year.” She  came to realize “I really loved it.”

Austin, who had a bachelor’s degree in elementary education and special education from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, went to Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon to earn a master’s in educational leadership.

“Here I am 35 years later,” she said.

The school’s name was slated to be Port Washington Christian School, but the board thought that was too narrow in scope. Ozaukee Christian School was a better representation.

OCS started in 1990 with 13 children in kindergarten through fourth grade at Portview. Austin taught the children’s physical education classes.

The school moved to Friedens Church in Port for a few years before returning to Portview, which added an education wing.

Five years later, OCS moved to the former site of Immaculate Conception School in Saukville.

“We had a beautiful gym and cafeteria that was separate, and a playground,” Austin said.

Nearly two decades later, OCS was on the move again, looking for a bigger facility.

Eighty different sites were studied. An offer on one property wasn’t accepted, but the right spot was found a couple of years later — a former strip club in a strip mall on Highway 33 just over the Washington-Ozaukee county line in the Town of Trenton.

“It has never been about me. It never will be about me. Even with this building, God simply saw to it that we were here in this space and this location so more and more people could come to him, and that’s only going to continue,” Austin said.

The Christian backgrounds of the student body are diverse. Nearly 25 churches are represented at OCS, and this year’s 12-member eighth-grade class covered 11 of them.

“I have never even been in a church setting that has as much harmony as there is here,” Austin said.

“Jesus is our risen savior. The tomb is empty. We don’t focus on what’s different about the other churches.”

“As an educator, I’m all about education and developing the mind, but the heart and the mind are only eight inches apart from your body, and we cannot divorce them from each other.”

Students often invite each other to their churches or vacation Bible school.

Students need more than reading, writing and arithmetic, she said.

“Only Jesus can meet those needs. So we’re able to pray with them and pray over them and meet that deeper need and that changes the educational outcome as well,” Austin said.

Societal pressures still exist. Once when a balloon popped, a student asked if it was a gun, she said.

The school’s cell phone policy has always required that devices be turned off and in backpacks during school hours.

During every-other-year trips to Washington D.C., phones are not allowed. During bus rides, children played cards, sang silly songs and played the alphabet game rather than staring at screens.

OCS does use technology, such as how artificial intelligence can help teachers save time. Students in seventh and eighth grade have Chromebooks and younger students have access.

“Technology is a tool we all use. We want them to understand that — what are the good points of AI and when does it cross an ethical barrier,” Austin said.

But the school still teaches cursive writing, finding psychological advantages to handwriting, she said.

OCS, the only nondenominational school in a 40-mile radius, now has 140 students, is accredited by the Association of Christian Schools International and participates in the Wisconsin Parental Choice program. Students come from as far as Hartford, Rubicon, Belgium and Oostburg. Thirty percent live in Ozaukee County.

The K-8 school has plans to start a high school in the near future, possibly on land adjacent to the school’s current 40-acre piece of property.

Austin grew up in Janesville, but didn’t have a Christian education. Her father worked for General Motors and her mother stayed at home but led youth groups such as Brownies. Austin, who was the first in her family to graduate from college, said she found Jesus in high school.

She expected to do missionary work. “I figured it would be foreign missions” she said. “Once OCS started, I realized I am doing that. It’s just locally.”

A tearful closing chapel was held on Friday, the students’ last day of school. Her retirement gift is an all-expenses-paid mission trip to Romania. Austin said she hopes to deliver Christmas bags the school funded to a friend working for the mission Outstretched Hands of Romania. Austin challenged her school to raise money for 20 bags at $10 each. It raised enough for 325.

“It’s a story only God could write. None of us are smart enough to come up with a script like this,” Austin said.