With the relatively abrupt departure of our morning Nanny, my wife and I were left scrambling to secure a seat for our daughter at a school for the upcoming academic year. Thankfully our afternoon/back-up Nanny was able to go full time until the end of the summer so we had a little breathing room. Not only are we in need of securing care but we also believe this is the right time for our daughter to go ahead and get started in school. She definitely desires the socialization and is naturally curious so we think she will thrive in school.
The first thing to say is, there are a lot of options out there! Multiple learning philosophies, methods and styles to learning, and the abundant spectrum of quality all make this decision fraught with confusion. I decided to go about the search as methodically as possible, first with a location based search to find the schools that made the most sense from a commuting and convenience factors. When I realized there were several highly rated options near us, I was relieved that we would be choosing from the cream of the crop and not the cream of the crap. When we bought our house, the public schools were our concern, I didn't even think about the pre-school options...
My wife made appointments at our favorites after learning more about the schools from friends, co-workers and multiple review sites I found online. A couple factors to be aware of: All schools have basic regulations they must follow based on state requirements such as education levels of their staff, ratios of students to teachers, etc. but they vary in many "soft" ways that may be extremely important to you. We found all the schools met or exceeded the educational standards of the state so after that we started looking at locations (near the playground, safe setting, secure facility), attitudes of the staff (they varied from extremely warm and inviting to slightly cold and uninspired), schedules, educational priorities... The list could go on forever. What about lunch, is it provided or do you pack it?
Don't forget two major factors: how old is your kid and how long is the waiting list? We found a variety of starting ages. 18-months was the earliest starting age (which is what we needed) and the oldest was starting at 3 years old. We also came across two schools with a year long waiting list due to popularity (I have heard of other places with a longer wait list). Biggest learning point here... We will start the process for kid number two much earlier so we can get on the list sooner. We got the last opening at our preferred school just in time!
The bottom line I came to: does this place seem like a good fit for our daughter? Taking into all the logical factors we had to go with our gut feeling. Which place would she thrive in, not just survive in? Who would I want making life and death decisions for my daughter if something bad happened?
We decided on a Jewish Pre-School about a mile from our house, which is almost half-way between our place and one set of grandparents (hugely convenient). Even though we are not Jewish, it just felt right to send her to this environment. We loved the setting, the director was by far the most friendly we met and the added benefit of our daughter getting some additional cultural exposure was a major plus. We want her to learn to respect all cultures and appreciate how each culture has something great to contribute to our society.
My wife and I are now learning how to pack a kosher friendly lunch (didn't know that mixing milk and meat was against kosher guidelines), we will have to get kosher treats for birthdays if desired and we will be learning the Jewish Holidays since the school will be closed those days. It is a new adventure our Catholic family is excited to start. Shalom everybody!
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