Nottawa Community Schools launches new GSRP program

By Robert Tomlinson
News Director

NOTTAWA — Prior to this year, every school district in St. Joseph County offered the Great Start Readiness Program (GSRP) for pre-kindergarten learning, except for one district.
Now, that one district is fully on board.
Nottawa Community Schools held an open house Thursday, Aug. 14 for its new Nottawa Community Preschool GSRP program, which begins its first school year on Sept. 2. With the addition of their program, every school district in St. Joseph County now offers the GSRP program in their schools through the St. Joseph County Intermediate School District.
“We’ve had a lot of people interested and signing up for the coming school year, and we have our community coming in and checking out our program,” Nottawa Community Schools Superintendent Jerome Wolff said.
GSRP is a free pre-kindergarten program for 4-year-old children through the state of Michigan, and is open to all families. Children primarily learn social skills, as well as math, reading and thinking, through play and other hands-on activities through the program. There are also full-day and half-day versions available.
Amanda Beery, the early childhood administrator for Nottawa and a kindergarten teacher herself, said a typical day involves plenty of activity for the kids.
“They come in, and they get to play right away, because that’s what’s important in preschool, and then they get some breakfast, which is provided by the school,” Beery said. “After they eat breakfast, they’ll have group time with Ms. Rhonda [Byler, GSRP teacher], and then they plan where they’re going to go work. To us, we call it work, but to them, it’s play. They get to choose their play area and then they’ll come back and talk about what they did. They usually read a book, they go outside twice a day, there is a naptime, and a lot of community-building.”
Adding the GSRP program has been something Nottawa has sought for the last two and a half years, and was something Wolff said the community, through surveys the district conducted, had been seeking.
“We found that about half of our kindergarteners were already going to some sort of a preschool, and then when we saw that preschool is really becoming more of a universal offering in public schools, we said, well, if half of our kids are doing this … it’s time to be doing this as well,” Wolff said. “We’re just answering where our community was heading.”
A new, small building was constructed right next to the Nottawa school to house the GSRP program, with part of the construction funds coming from a GSRP startup grant from the state. The building was completed by August 2024, but because of review processes with the state, it was only officially certified this past June.
The main classroom in the building that will be used – there are two classrooms in the new building – contains things you’d normally find in a kindergarten classroom, with books, bookshelves, a playmat, an art table, and plenty of other amenities. Leading the classroom will be Rhonda Byler, who has 25 years of teaching experience at the elementary and special education level, with the associate teacher being Ella Stevens.
Byler, who comes to Nottawa after teaching previously in Elkhart and Lagrange in Indiana, said she’s excited to be leading the new GSRP program at Nottawa.
“We’ve been busy getting the room ready the last couple of weeks, so it’ll be fun to start digging into the curriculum and start the planning,” Byler said. “The next two weeks, we’ll be focusing on home visits and getting to know the families a bit more.”
Beery said the experiences kids gain from the GSRP program will be important developmentally, and will be helpful for students who may go to Nottawa in the future.
“It teaches them social skills, it teaches them emotional skills, it teaches them how to share, how to take turns, how to get along with others that they may not get along with,” Beery said. Wolff added it also helps kids develop language skills.
Wolff and Beery said they hope to see the new GSRP program thrive in Nottawa, and added that the main goal of the program is to support kids developmentally.
“The main thing is we’re here to support our families in the community and our area, and this is something that helps their children,” Wolff said.
“I would love to see the program be completely full with 18 in each classroom. We have very loving teachers that are very excited about playing with the kids, loving on the kids, and having just really good experiences with everybody,” Beery said.
Those who want more information on Nottawa’s GSRP program are asked to call the school at (269) 467-7153 or call the St. Joseph County ISD at (269) 283-0010. Registration for GSRP at any school district in St. Joseph County is also available at helpmegrowstjoe.org.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.