Work Hard + Play Hard = Learning

On a foggy December morning in 2023, students arrived at East Elementary School in Sheldon, Iowa, to find someone on the roof dressed as Luigi (from the Super Mario Brothers video game), jumping and waving amidst confetti streamers and music. Later at ground level, Luigi (also known as Principal Jason Groendyke ’02) exchanged high-fives and rock-paper-scissors matches with students, all of whom he knows by name. This is a normal day at East Elementary.

Four months later—this time dressed in business casual—Jason Groendyke received the 2024 Iowa Elementary Principal of the Year award. That honor came shortly after East was recognized as a National Blue Ribbon School by the U.S. Department of Education.

This was not so normal for Groendyke or the school. When he arrived in 2014, East Elementary had just been given the status of School in Need of Assistance for low reading scores, with math close behind.

Groendyke led the charge, with staff and faculty alongside, to make sure all students could learn. It worked. Since 2018, East Elementary has been considered a High Performing School. And the latest Iowa school performance profile lists East as one of only 16 in the “Exceptional” category.

“My staff was craving to do better,” Groendyke explains. “They just needed the support, guidance and leadership,” which has culminated in what is now “a high-quality multi-tiered system of supports.”

Drawing from the mission and values he learned at Northwestern, Groendyke says he wants every student to feel cared for as a person—not only as a student—and to approach each day with intentionality and compassion.

Compassion has motivated Groendyke ever since a spring service trip he took as a Northwestern student. In a low-income neighborhood in New Orleans, the group’s service was to simply play with the children, and that is what they did.

“The part of that day that stands out the most to me is when a child fell asleep in my arms,” he recalls “I believe that child felt safe. That experience became a milestone for me, shaping my belief that relationships are foundational to effective learning.”