By Lou Ann Millett
Tribune Correspondent
Nestled on the top floor of West Street Christian Church, 132 N. West Street, are several rooms used for free tutoring for all grade levels. For Karen Dunham, a retired Tipton Community School Corporation elementary teacher, this program is her dream come true. When she retired, she knew she still had much to share with the children in the community.
Of course, who doesn’t know a retired teacher who has taken home all the resources they had accumulated over a lifetime of teaching? Dunham’s resources didn’t find a home in her attic or garage. She had a more important place to “store” them: at her church, in a top floor room, originally built in size to accommodate the baby boomer numbers attending Sunday School.
Dunham, with the church’s blessing and some financial support, has converted this room to accommodate a thirty minute session of FREE one-on-one tutoring for anyone Pre-K through High School. As the program has grown over the years, tutoring has expanded to include three adjacent rooms.
Tutors include retired area men and women teachers, business men and women, high school students, retired professionals, school para-professionals, and bi-lingual members of the community. These tutors help anywhere from 30-50 students with their homework for 30 minutes; more importantly, the tutors “pass on” their love of learning to these “tutees” who may or may not be excited to come to tutoring.
Over the years, through well-used monetary donations from The Campbell Family Foundation, Tipton Kiwanis, Tipton Retired Teachers Association, West Street Christian Church, as well as generous individuals, the tutoring rooms have become equipped with IPADs, a wealth of grade-level-appropriate practice worksheets, hundreds of grade-level-appropriate books, a copy machine and paper and treats.
Learning isn’t all about being successful. Learning includes having a positive attitude and trying one’s hardest. At the end of a tutoring session, the tutee can select a snack and/or a pouch drink to eat on the way home. There is a reward box available. Plus, near to this reporter/retired teacher’s heart, is a grade-appropriate book box. For each child’s birthday, they get to select a book to take home. Additionally, at each holiday throughout the year, Dunham sees to it that each tutee is offered a book to own and to read for pleasure.
Dunham explained tutees come to a half-hour session either Wednesday or Thursday between 3:15 and 5:45 p.m. Here is the schedule for the summer and next fall/winter:
• 1st Summer Session begins June 11/12
• 2nd Summer Session begins July 9/10
• Fall Session begins August 20/21
• Winter/Spring Session begins January 14/15, 2026.
To schedule for the first summer session, call the church office at 765-675-7421. Dunham stressed that individual scheduling is flexible to accommodate summer activities and vacations.
