Mothers Day Out to start Friday

By Sam Waller

Matthews Memorial Presbyterian Church will have 30 students for its Mothers Day Out preschool program, which starts Friday, Sept. 9 at MMPC.

Mothers Day Out will meet from 8:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. each Monday and Friday through Monday, May 22, following the Albany ISD calendar for holidays.

Brandi Lehew, who is in her second year as director of the program, said enrollment is up from 24 students last year.

“We have a lot of new families in town who will have children attending, and we’re excited to get to know them,” Lehew said. “We’re looking forward to a great year.”

The program is for children 1 to 5 years old, and Lehew said enrollment is spread fairly evenly among the ages.

“We have seven or eight 1-year-olds and seven or eight 4- and 5-year-olds,” she said. “We’re pretty even all the way across.”

A Meet the Teacher event was held Wednesday, Sept. 7, to introduce students to the program’s staff.

“We’ve got the same group of teachers – Meg Walser, Daivis Gallagher, Erin Shack, and Cheyenne Harbold,” Lehew said. “We also hired four teachers aides to assist in every classroom because we have more kids. We wanted to make sure we have enough hands to love on all of them.”

Lehew said the program’s curriculum remained largely unchanged this year.

“We’ll be doing a lot of the same things we’ve done in the past,” she said. “We’re going to try to incorporate a lot about the town of Albany in our curriculum. We’ll have Bible lessons, music, recess – just normal schoolday activities.”