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Preschool returns to Gladbrook

G-R and Crayon Corner team up to offer new program next school year

Crayon Corner Learning Center director Amber Gebel, left, and G-R Elementary School principal Shaun Lehmann pictured on Friday, April 14, in Gladbrook. The district and the daycare are partnering to offer preschool in Gladbrook next school year. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER
The new Gladbrook-Reinbeck Preschool room located in the basement of Crayon Corner Learning Center in Gladbrook pictured on Friday, April 14. The room is still a work in progress as the district and daycare embark on their revived partnership. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER
Children’s artwork from 2020 hangs on the wall in the new Gladbrook-Reinbeck Preschool room located in the basement of Crayon Corner Learning Center in Gladbrook. The last time Crayon Corner offered preschool was during the 2010-2020 school year. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER
Playground space at Crayon Corner Learning Center in Gladbrook. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

GLADBROOK – Gladbrook will soon be welcoming back a key component of the community that’s been missing for several years when school bells across Iowa ring this fall – a preschool program.

Through a partnership between the Gladbrook-Reinbeck Community School District and Crayon Corner Learning Center located at 409 Washington Street – mere steps from where the Gladbrook school buildings were torn down last year – a three-year-old and four-year-old public preschool program will be available beginning next school year.

“The school board wanted to make preschool a priority,” G-R Elementary principal Shaun Lehmann said last week Friday while standing in Crayon Corner’s basement room which will serve as the new preschool. “They wanted to provide the Gladbrook community the opportunity for preschool [which will] benefit and reach more kids in the district.”

Currently, G-R offers three-year-old preschool and the statewide voluntary preschool program for four-year-olds in Reinbeck only through the Little Rebels Learning Center. The program has about 50 children enrolled but none are from Gladbrook, Lehmann said, before adding that last school year there were some Gladbrook students in the program.

Prior to the pandemic, Crayon Corner did offer a preschool program for threes and fours but had to discontinue due to both low enrollment and staffing difficulties, Crayon Corner director Amber Gebel.

The new three-day-a-week, half-day morning program — Gladbrook-Reinbeck Preschool — will begin on August 30, 2023. While the cost for four-year-olds is free, tuition will be $115 per month for the three-year-old program with need-based scholarships available through Better Tomorrows. Total enrollment will be capped at 20 students.

Kennedy Dye, who is currently completing a teacher education program at Grinnell College and is set to graduate in May, has been hired as the new preschool teacher. The program will also have a paraeducator.

“When you look at the long-term education of a child, making sure we’re offering all our kids – throughout the district – preschool opportunities is important,” Lehmann said. “Without it, as they start their education career path, they’re always climbing up a hill.”

Parents and caregivers interested in enrolling their child in the new Gladbrook preschool are asked to email or call Shaun Lehmann – shaun.lehmann@gr-rebels.net or 319-345-2822 – or register at this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckHlPm0El9jiXk8z7CORRnCvhF4JbiBK-UxVEa3S9J00qw5A/viewform