Now you’re ready to move on to actually finding a school. You’ve weighed the different philosophies and decided on the one or couple that would best work for you and your child. The next step is doing the research — is there one of those schools in your area?

Word of Mouth. The best way to find good schools is by asking around. Ask your friends and family if they know of any schools in the area that are reputable. Strike up conversations with parents at parks or at the library to ask where their children go and if they’d recommend it. A personal reference is much better than an ad in a phone book.

Expert Help. The Childcare Aware hot line 800-424-2246 is an excellent resource to find schools in your area. They can give you the local numbers for childcare referral agencies and they can give you the skinny on great schools in your area. You can also get a list of accredited preschools in the area and while that doesn’t necessarily guarantee those schools will be a good fit for you it’s a good place to start looking.

Phone book. This is a last resort resource. The Yellow Pages don’t screen preschools anyone who buys ad space can put their school in the book. It’s an excellent starting point if you need it but remember you must do your homework.

Any school you decide on needs a closer look before you enroll your child. Make sure you not only interview the director over the phone but you go down and visit the school during school hours to get a feel for how the school truly is.

Questions to ask over the phone:
1.) Fees. If it’s a private preschool it will have some
2.) Hours. A school is no good if you need an 8 am to 5 pm and they’re only open til noon.
3.) Student to teacher ratio (7 students to 1 teacher is the ideal for ages 3 and 4)
4.) What holidays or weeks are they closed
5.) Their discipline philosophy
6.) Nutrition. Do they supply the food? Do you? Are there things you couldn’t send in a lunch? Things of that nature
7.) Lists of the daily activities

If you like what you hear then you want to schedule time to visit. You’ll want to meet the director and the staff. See the facilities, the play area, examples of the daily activities, and see if the kids generally seem to be having a good time.

Things to keep an eye out for while visiting:
1.) Is it a clean and safe environment
2.) Do the teachers seem happy with their jobs
3.) Do the kids seem happy with their teachers
4.) Is the equipment outside taking care of and safe

Don’t be afraid to ask questions and poke your nose around their facility. This is a place your child is going to spend a lot of time in when you aren’t around to make sure their safe. You can never be too careful choosing a school — do your homework.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 2nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm and is filed under Child Safety, Safety, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.