St. Luke's gets behind home-school students

FORT MADISON – A new option sponsored through St. Luke's Episcopal Church is providing a haven for students in the area who are home-schooled.
The church leadership has agreed to help fund the start-up of the program called St. Luke's Homeschool Hub held Monday through Thursday at the YMCA Test Kitchen’s STEM Lounge at 803 Avenue G.
The program was created for students who don’t seem to excel in public or private school settings and whose families have chosen to home school.
Fort Madison resident Jadi Zioui is the program manager and helped organize it after talking to parents and has included her child Sunshine in the program. She joins about five others currently taking advantage of the hub, while there is capacity for about 25 more.
The hub isn’t a school, but a gathering place for home-schooled students in the area who are on their own curriculum chosen by the students’ families or guardians.
Students can come to the STEM Lounge Monday through Thursday with Friday being a day set aside for field trips or educational tours.
Currently the class starts at about 9:30 a.m. but will eventually start at 8 a.m. when the BNSF Bridge opens for traffic again. Zioui is from Illinois and requires additional time to get to the lounge.
“We are not a school. I want to be clear about that. We’re a hub. That’s the thing. It’s like these kids are all going to different schools in the same room,” Zioui said.
“However, that doesn’t mean we don’t teach them home economics when they’re doing their breakfast hour, or when we have guests come in.”
Wilkerson said the program is a build-out of what happened during COVID when people started to realize you don’t have to be on-site.
“Covid brought about a lot of options aside from in-person. There are children still who face a social stigma if they are home-schooled after Covid,” Wilkerson said. “It’s a compromise thing. We want the education, but they would be missing out on the socialization. And they lose the ostracizing that goes along with someone home-schooled. That is a reality and, if we don’t acknowledge it, then who suffers? The kids suffer.”
Wilkerson’s husband Paul is a retired public and private school teacher who currently serves on the Fort Madison School District Board of Directors.
She said the idea met with some resistance at home at first.
“At first Paul was saying, 'Really?' but the more we talked about it, the more he understands that we owe it to these children to give them the safest environment we can without compromising the quality of education,” Wilkerson said.
The program was originally planned to be hosted at the church at 6th and E in Fort Madison, but conversations quickly moved plans to the STEM Lounge.
“Originally it was going to try to be held at the church, but it wasn’t conducive with the wifi and all that kind of stuff,” Wilkerson said.

A meeting of the Vestry, or administrative arm, of St. Luke’s, and a conversation with Chef Kaleb Wischmeier of the Test Kitchen resulted in the partnership with the YMCA.
“Kaleb had talked to Karen Siefken at YMCA Test Kitchen and promoted to her the idea. We’d been tossing it around a little bit thanks for Jadi, and Karen showed us the facility,” Wilkerson said.
“It’s perfect. You’ve got the wifi, the white boards, big screens, and the small kitchen that kids can use. We’ve got Chromebooks here. So, the kids come here, and it just works out.”
She said several students in the congregation were struggling with public schools that are now home-schooled. The St. Luke’s diocese then offered a start-up grant to get the program off the ground. The Episcopal Diocese of Iowa is treating it as a pilot program and other churches could put it to use.
She said there is no motivation to convert anyone to the religion.
“That’s not why we’re doing this. We’re doing this because it’s a worthwhile project. That these children need to be served and it's community outreach. It has nothing to do with being Episcopalian or even Christian. Everyone is welcome,” Wilkerson said.
Ripley Mena, an 8th grader engaged in the program, said a lot of the schools say and do things her family doesn’t believe in, so they’ve chosen to home school.
“There are things our family doesn’t want us learning about that young. We want to be aware and not just fall into the world is trying to teach us, rather than what we know,” Mena said.
Wilkerson said it has nothing to do with the church.
“We don’t question anyone’s motivation,” she said.
The Test Kitchen provides the space, but the group does pay for use of the utilities and wifi.
Ripley’s brother Wyatt said having a facility helps him focus on work.
“When you’re at the house you might get distracted by the tv, phones, or siblings. We don’t have a problem doing homework, it’s just how long we take,” he said.
“But when we do it here, we get it done in half the time and this helps with socialization.”
The Menas have been homes-chooled their whole lives and this, Wyatt, said, gives them a chance to meet other similar people and build friend groups.
Families who are interested in using the hub can reach out to Zioui or Wilkerson by text at 319-406-2398 or go online at blildu.melst-lukes-community-homeschool-hub
The facility is open from Labor Day to Memorial Day Monday through Thursday. Friday is a field trip day and the hub will following a public school schedule for holidays.