How To Find The Best Preschool For Your Child

Looking for potential preschools can be overwhelming for parents. There are so many different choices available it can be difficult deciding which is the best fit for you and your child.

My first suggestion is to do some leg work on the types of preschools available in your area.

Some of these types include:

Secular 

Religious

Play Based

Waldorf 

Montessori 

Reggio Emilia 

State Funded For At-Risk Children 

It's important to note that some of these can overlap. For example you may have a play based religious preschool in your area.

Next you may want to educate yourself on the different types and decide which philosophies and settings align with your own ideas as well as your child's needs. I found this waldorf, playbased, montessori, what does it all mean? to be an excellent resource in breaking down some of the schools available.

Now comes the fun part. After narrowing down your schools you want to call and schedules tours of the school. I can't express enough how important it is to visit the school during open hours. You want to see the teachers and students in action. This will give you a nice idea of the overall environment of the school.

It's a good idea to leave your child home for the first visit. You are going to want to ask many questions and you don't want to be distracted by your child. Most schools will have an open house day where once enrolled your child can visit the school and meet the teachers before their first day.

I thought it would be helpful to list some questions that may help guide your school visits. When I taught preschool these were some of the many questions parents often asked. I also know it can be difficult to know what to ask especially if you are a first time parent and not used to the preschool environments.

Questions To Help Guide Your School Visits 

1. What is your philosophy?- A school should be ready to answer this immediately. You want to make sure it aligns with your research on the school. If they say they are play based you want to ensure they aren't using letter worksheets for "learning letters". You get the idea...

2. What is the daily schedule?- This will give you an idea of how your child's day will look.

3. How is parent communication achieved?- How will they contact you if there is a problem or if they need to discuss anything: notes, email, phone calls? Also, how do they inform parents of what's happening at school? Is there a weekly newsletter, monthly newsletter, class website? You may also want to ask how many parent teacher conferences are scheduled.

4. How do they deal with discipline?- Developmentally appropriate schools will use redirection and positive reinforcement and time outs sparingly- if at all.

5. Do they welcome parent helpers?- This was huge for me. My daughter was in a school once where they just really seemed to not encourage parents helping out in any way. It was frustrating as a former preschool teacher because I couldn't wait to be able to help out in my own children's classroom after being on the other side for so long. I also think it just plain looks bad if a school is discouraging parents coming into the classrooms.

6. What are their security measures?- Do parents need to be buzzed in? Are the doors locked at all times? Is the playground fenced in or safe from busy roads and high traffic areas?

7. How do they handle holidays and celebrations?- If this is something that is important to you, you might want find out if they have parties for Halloween, Valentine's Day etc. Do they celebrate birthdays? If it's a secular school do they celebrate Christmas, Kwanza, Hanukkah? Make sure the celebration philosophy fits with the experience you want for your child.

8. What's the teacher/child ratio?- Of course you want a good ratio where there aren't a million kids and one teacher! :)

9. What's the drop off/pick up procedure?- Make sure they have a plan in place for who's allowed to pick up your child. Also, you may want to look at logistics and make sure it works for your family.

10. What is the tuition and how are the payments scheduled? This is probably a no brainer and may be at the top of the list but I wanted to make sure to include it. :)

*I also wanted to mention that schools that are NAEYC accredited (NAEYC- stands for National Association for the Education of Young Children) mean they are approved as a high quality early childhood center. You can find out more about that here on the NAEYC website: naeyc.org/accreditation/

You can also find schools that are NAEYC accredited in your area on there as well.

Hope this helps! Happy Preschool Shopping!

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