DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) - On the mornings they are out of school, about 10 kids aged first to 12th grade pile into Gronen, unpack notebooks and laptops and start working.
Although it’s a day off from in-person learning, the students have just the resources needed here to get their work done.
“It’s fun to go (to Gronen) and have new friends, and I feel like if I were to do (homework) alone, I wouldn’t be able to concentrate,” said Anna Weigman, an eighth-grade student who is a part of the Gronen Guidance Center. “It is cool that retired teachers can come and help you and take time out of their day.”
When the Dubuque Community School District announced its hybrid learning plan, which has kids in the classroom twice a week as well as every other Friday, many parents began to worry about how they would help kids with homework and be with them during their off days while maintaining full-time jobs.
“One of us probably would have had to work from home,” said Kim Weigman, Anna’s mother and director of first impression at Gronen. “One of us would have had to quit our job, and that is something we couldn’t afford to do.”
As Mary Gronen, vice president of the real estate development development and restoration company, began to overhear her employees’ conversations, she knew she needed to find a way to support her staff.
“I started thinking, I am so glad I do not have school-aged children anymore,” she told the Dubuque Telegraph Herald. “I cannot imagine having to juggle having full-time work and worrying about what to do with students on those off days. It kind of raises the hairs on the back of my neck.”
Gronen decided to call Don Koppes, a retired Dubuque Community School District teacher, who had tutored her sons. Maybe he could help, she thought.
After speaking with Koppes, the two of them devised a plan that would allow students to come into Gronen for several hours during their off days and work with Koppes and another former teacher to get their homework done and receive extra assistance.
Koppes said that after Gronen called him, he reached out to his friend Doug Bausch, also a former Dubuque schools teacher, and the two decided to begin working with the students.
Now every Tuesday and Thursday and every other Friday, 10 students attend the Gronen Guidance Center from 8 a.m. to noon to complete their school work and receive support if questions arise during their studies.
“(When) they’re working on homework, Doug and I are moving around the classroom to check and see what they’re doing, and every couple minutes someone will raise their hand,” Koppes said. “The students have been great. We make sure that they know what they are doing. We have been absolutely thrilled with how it is going.”
The tutoring is open to the 50-plus employees who work for Gronen, a real estate development and restoration company run by Mary and her husband, John Gronen.
The students just wrapped up their first week together, and although their hours were shortened due to the early dismissals, Anna said she really enjoyed having the extra assistance for her school work and meeting new people.
“I ask them a bunch of different questions and sometimes they both come and help me, and they help me with work I don’t know how to do,” she said.
Jessica Kieffer, a real estate associate, said without the guidance center, her husband would have needed to leave his part-time job at Heartland Financial to stay home and be with their two daughters Isabella, 11, and Samantha, 8.
“My husband and I feel very fortunate that John and Mary are so forward-thinking,” Kieffer said. “I don’t know how we would have done it, honestly. I know my oldest is really enjoying it because she is able to ask the older kids questions. I can tell her excitement every morning.”
As positive COVID-19 cases in Dubuque County continue to climb, Gronen said she and the parents know it is a possibility that schools might transition to all virtual. For now, they are taking the school year one day at a time.
“We decided we will cross that bridge if it comes to it,” she said.
Gronen said the company is paying the two former teachers for their service, noting she and John see it not as an imposition but an investment in their employees.
“Here we always say family comes first,” Gronen said. “It’s one of our core values of our company, and we really do try to live by that. I know what it was like being a working mom and raising two boys. We get it.”
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