How to Choose the Right Pre-K School for your Child

Today’s parent is faced with an array of decisions that his or her parent may not have had to tackle. After wrestling with the decision of whether to send your child to public school versus private school or to home school; you now have to determine which school best fits your little scholar. Read on for helpful tips on how to tackle this huge decision for the coming up school year.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Search, search, search! Do a Google search for the local schools that offer Pre-K classes. Compile a list of schools in your area. Get the locations and numbers of each. Notate whether or not the school is a public elementary school or a daycare. This may be important to you. Determine if you want your child at a school with 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. This article is not about shielding your child from life, rather it is to help one cipher through the many options that are made available to parents today as it relates to education.

2. Read, read, read! Go to the Board of Education website for your county. Learn more about the school system in your area. There you can find out the teacher/student/school ratio for your county. For example there are 30 schools in our county and some 22,000+ enrolled students. Wow is right! These are simply ideas to consider as you determine whether to send your child to a public school’s pre-k versus, daycare pre-k, private pre-k. Visit the websites of the daycares that you are interested in and read all you can about the teachers, the staff and the school’s standing or reputation in the community.

3. If you are considering a daycare pre-k, you’d need to call months in advance to find out how many slots are available, how fast the slots fill up and if there is or will be a list generated for interested parents of that school.

4. If private pre-k is the school type of your choice, many daycare offer both private and public pre-k classrooms within the one school. Ask for the rates and slots available for the private pre-k classroom.

5. Curriculum! While on the different websites take note of the curriculums being used. Google search those and read all you can on what the curriculum covers. Determine if these subjects and teaching styles are right for your child. If you decide to home school from the start research the different curriculums available to you.

6. Also bear in mind what you have observed to be your child’s learning style. Is he/she a visual, auditory or kinesthetic learner? Which if either do the school focus on most. This will be vital to your child’s success in any classroom. These are also the things that might have kept you or someone you know from excelling in school.

7. Take note of the location of the school, the playground area, the energy and the attentiveness of the staff. Know what is expected of you, your child and voice your expectations of the school.

8. Once you have covered these very basic but very important options as it relates to your child’s first year of formal education, and you are certain that you did the best that you could do to get him/her started off on the right foot, sit back and relax a little. Allow the school and staff to do their job but always remain involved with how your child is doing. Are they thriving, are they getting the skills that you feel are important to them becoming a productive and positive adult? If so, remember, to thank those responsible.