St. James Preschool Celebrates 40 Years of Fun and Education

Today marks the 40^th last day of school for St. James Preschool Learning Center.

For four decades, the small preschool and prekindergarten (and once upon a time kindergarten) programs have readied a group of the town's youngest learners for a lifelong of eduaction and it's a tradition staff and parents hope to see carried on for years.

“You know your kids are going to learn so much and have such a great time here,” said Staci Felder, a St. James parent. As described by parents following a morning of their children being at school, St. James is a small, tight-knit community that allows children to have a great deal of fun while preparing for kindergarten and their next 12 years of education.

St. James Preschool, which is run out of a couple of rooms inside the church hall at St. James United Methodist Church, is an independently-run, nonprofit program for children ages 3 and 4. There is also a Mommy and Me class on Friday mornings that allows parents to bond with their children while they learn. Despite sharing the name, the preschool is in no way affiliated with the church, it simply leases space on the property.

The school is led by a group of six woman who combined have 104 years at St. James: Director, Carol Sylvia (15 years); preschool teachers, Pat Flynn (18 years) and Judi Ann Doliber (17 years); prekindergarten teachers, Joanne Johnson (28 years) and Donna Niles (23 years); and music teacher and Mommy and Me leader Julie Gage (3 years).

Between the six of them, they've put 14 of their own kids through the school and eight grandkids and counting.

“I think the teacher longevity says a lot about the school,” said Gretchen Ricks, a parent and member of the school's board, made up of the staff and six parents.

And the family-friendly atmosphere, the hands-on learning and the superior facetime the families have with the staff really makes the school shine, said Ricks and fellow parent/board members Felder, Dawn Legay, and Sarah Kapp.

Prekindergarten students, the 4-year-olds, attend a three-day program from 8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., while preschoolers are there twice a week from 8:30-11:30 am. It's an opportunity for the children learn to be social with other children to focus on intellectual development and to learn routines from the most basic things like cleaning up after playtime in preschool to practicing handwriting in prekindergarten.

Family-friendly and parent-involved, Felder said not only do the parents at St. James love the program they send their kids to, they hear wonderful feedback from teachers in Merrimack's public schools about the children who've been prepped for school through this program.

“It's full of lots of hands-on, outside of the classroom activities,” Kapp said.
They children recently put on a Mothers Day tea for their moms and they take field trips to places like Currier Orchards and local nursing homes to sing carols.

For the 4-year-olds, who will go off to kindergarten – most at Merrimack public schools – they have the opportunity to practice riding a bus, which picks them up and takes them to see the Clydesdales at the Anheuser-Busch brewery. They practice getting on and off the bus – a simple but useful activity that helps ready them for the following year.

But the parents go back again to the staff who they say make the program what it is.

And its easy to tell that the six of them have formed a bond in all their years together. And Sylvia said a similar bond is there between the families year after year who get to know each other in the halls of the school when they come to pick up their kids. Sylvia's own kids, ages 32, 26 and 21 went through the program and to this day, she is still friends with parents she met at St. James.

Though the kids are often together for only two years before separating to the town's three elementary schools, you see parents pick right back up when they all meet again in fifth grade. And when a St. James family is in need you see the community rally around them even when they haven't talked in years, Sylvia said.

“St. James is more like a family,” Flynn said. “And it's always sad when you see families who've had multiple kids come through the program graduate and move on.”

Flynn said the importance of these early formative years is critical to how students develop and the ultimate goal for the 3-year-olds class is to have a great first year of school, flourish, and become happ and independent learners ready to go on to a slightly more structured program the following year. They work on developing social and emotional skills.

“You see such a huge difference from September to the end of the year,” she said.

For many kids, this is truly their first experience away from their parents, Doliber said, so they almost become like second parents throughout the year.

Prekindergarten picks up where preschool leaves off, incorporating playtime and fun with improving motor skills, working on handwriting and learning numbers, shapes, spatial reasoning and more.

Each classroom has lending libraries and encourages reading in school and at home, and they invite parents and grandparents in to read to the kids.

The music program that Gage leads gives students the opportunity to dance and sing and play with musical instruments and very simply encourages creativity.

In 40 years, the school has seen its share of changes, going from a three-age group program to two with the onset of public kindergarten – a change they fully supported in understanding the necessity of kindergarten being available to all parents in town not just those who could afford a private program. Probably the biggest change, aside from the clothes they wore in the 80s, Johnson joked, is the necessity for things like lockdown drills, Doliber said.

“That has got to be the biggest change in our years here.”

That's not to say there isn't change annually. They switch up programs, they find new projects and games. They love Pinterest. And they adapt to the changing demands of student needs.

“We want to switch it up and challenge the kids,” Niles said.

“If we did the same thing year after year, we wouldn't still be here,” Flynn added.

But whether its 10, 20 or 30 years from now the one thing that won't change is the school's commitment to fun and excellence and being a safe place for parents to send their kids.

“It's really heartfelt for us here,” Sylvia said. “This school is like family.”

To learn more about St. James Preschool Learning Center and enrollment, visit their website or call 603-424-4243.