Eagan Pub Owner Plans To Turn Unused Area Into Learning Space, Daycare For Employees With Children

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- As some school districts roll out specifics of how the upcoming year will work, others haven't yet, and parents are preparing for every scenario as best they can.

Tracie Munce, the owner of Eagan Arms Public House, a pub in Eagan, plans to offer her employees with school-aged children a hybrid of a daycare and classroom.

Munce wants to turn a dining room that's unused during the day into a learning space when school starts.

She's looking to hire a tutor to help facilitate the children's distance learning.

"Super exciting for me," said Chelsea Job, a bartender at the pub. "I didn't even have to think about it. I was like yep, absolutely."

Job wasn't sure how she'd juggle her job and her son Jackson's distance learning when he starts second grade in the Bloomington district this fall.

"Is he going to have school?" Job said. "Is something going to happen where he can't go to school? It is stressful. That is a stressful thing."

The Bloomington district told parents it'll release its plan for the year next week.

Munce says other employees of hers have kids in the Rosemount-Apple Valley-Eagan district.

There, half of the students will be going to school Mondays and Thursdays. The other half will attend on Tuesdays and Fridays.

"Their concern is two days of school is great, thank you, but what do I do with my student the other three days?" Munce said. "How do I keep them motivated? How do I keep them being continually engaged in school work?"

Job says she's not worried about the pub dining room as a learning environment, in part because her son is already comfortable there.

"[I like] the socialization, the structure and just knowing he's taken care of properly while I'm working and he's around people I know that are safe," Job said.

Munce wants the facilitator of the distance learning to be someone who isn't a parent or friend of the students, because she believes they'll focus better with someone who's more unfamiliar to them.