All About Mr. C!

Dear Alward Families,

Hello! Welcome to Alward and my website. My name is Toby Custer, and I teach second grade here. To say that I come from a family of teachers would be an understatement! I truly believe that teaching is the best occupation in the world, and it's not even close. The 2026-27 school year will be my sixth year teaching, as I graduated from GVSU (Go Lakers!) in 2021. I had the amazing opportunity to student teach in HPS at Jamestown Lower Elementary in 2nd grade, and immediately fell in love with the age group and curriculum. After student teaching, I took a long-term sub job here at Alward in the Resource Room, while I was still in college. Right away, I could tell that Alward was the place I was meant to teach! I have been lucky to start an amazing career here at Alward. I couldn't have asked for a more amazing group of students and families to collaborate with.

Throughout my career thus far, I have been humbled to receive a few educational awards. These include Grand Valley's "Excellence in Elementary Education" award and The Van Andel Institute for Education's "Caught Being Awesome" award. It has been super cool to be recognized in these ways. I truly beleive that I have the BEST job ever!!

I live in Jenison with my 3 year old daughter Roosevelt (Rosie), 5 month old son Harrison, and the love of my life, Abby. Keeping with family tradition, Abby is also a teacher. After an amazing 5 year run as a special education teacher, Abby will now be transitioning into a first grade role here at Alward! Currently, Rosie is fully embracing the "big-sister" role and is loving every minute of it. We have LOVED our time as parents so far! We enjoy playing pickleball, board games, hiking, going on walks to the various amazing parks in the area, and Disney World! In fact, we will be heading on our second Disney World family vacation in June. We are pumped!

I also am a massive sports fan, so your child might have a tough year in my class if they are a Michigan State fan (just kidding, Go Blue!). Hopefully the Tigers are able to make a deep playoff run this fall!

All in all, I couldn't be more excited to get this school year started. If you have any questions/concerns/comments, PLEASE DO NOT hesitate to reach out. Email will work best as I will be checking that many times a day. Let's have a great year!

Sincerely,

Mr. Toby Custer