Macomb Today

The Richmond community school board recently received an instructional presentation on the early childhood education program from Dean of Students Mike Gibson and lead teacher Laura Ottenbacher.

A team from the district’s early childhood learning center came to present to the board at the Dec. 12 board of education meeting. They've doubled their enrollment since 2018 from 60 students to 122 students currently. The center has a three-year-old program, a four-year-old program, and a Great Start to Readiness Program (GRSP) in the school, and all three of these programs have grown with the overall increase in enrollment.

The center is incorporating a new curriculum based on the literacy fundamentals that continues all the way through high school. Teachers will receive training on this curriculum in both December and January in order to be able to fully implement this program throughout the district. The center is pushing several early literacy programs in the preschool classes, with an example of the books on the beach program that they did as a start of school social.

The center is also looking to purchase some computers for its four-year-old program. The computers are to be for the children only and not for the teachers' use. Students can log in under their picture and programs will assist in individual learning for each student. Not only can the computer help in academic settings, but will also help teach students essential technical skills and fine motor skills at a very developmentally heavy age.

"So there's a lot of reportable standards that our preschool teachers are responsible for each year. It goes right into our system and like I say, it can be used for parent communication, it can be used for our Kindergarten team to see where our students are at the beginning of the year instead of waiting for a few weeks after NWEA, things like that," Richmond Community Schools Director of Early Childhood and Childcare Heidi Mangune said at the meeting.