How did you decide what preschool to send your kid(s) to?

Xarpolis

Xarpolis

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My daughter is about to turn 3 years old, and we're going to put her in a preschool now. We've been to 3 different schools thus far, and we definitely didn't like one of them, but we like the other two about the same. The difference is that one of them is REALLY expensive (similar to a Goddard school), where as the other is extremely inexpensive. Like 1/2 the price of Goddard, if not a little less. Both schools appear similar enough in what they do, but the more expensive one definitely has a lot of frills on top of the cheaper one. Here's the biggest difference.

Expensive school gives the kids more freedom to do what they want. In that regard, it seems closer to a daycare than a preschool (at least in my opinion). This is a private school.

Cheaper school seems to be very focused on structure. They teach kids to follow the directions and they learn a lot at the same time. This is an authorized school of our local public schools, so they offer kindergarten and stuff.

Realistically, I don't know which one to choose. We're going to send her to public school once she's of age. And this is really just a way for her to be completely immersed in the English language on a regular basis. She typically only speaks to me in English, where as she talks to her mother all day long in Japanese. As a result, her English is lacking. I figure this will fast track her to speaking English more often, while my wife will only speaks to her in Japanese.

Which would you choose and why? Please note, we still have 2-3 other local preschool places to take a tour of before we make our official decision. I'm just confused as to which way we should go. My wife thinks the more expensive one is better, where as I'm leaning more on the other. Not because I'm being cheap, but because our daughter needs structure. Right now she has none, and she flips the fuck out the second things don't go her way. My wife can't seem to fix this (time out doesn't work for her), and I'm only around her for 2 hours per day while she's awake. Busy at work the rest of the time. What do the rest of you think about preschool?
 
Tarrant

Tarrant

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My son is in a daycare at his school that is run by the public school system here. The public school here is consistently ranked near the top in the nation so I was fine with it personally. His Daycare is on level 2 of his building while his cl;ass room (he goes to pre school from 8:30am to 11:30am) so they take him from his daycare, to school and back down to daycare. It's worked out really well and they both use the same curriculum. My son loves it.

My son is a lot like your daughter in that he flips the fuck out at times when he can't have his way. The school he goes to is very much about structure as well (though not cheap by my standards, nearly $1100 a month) he couldn't be in a better situation.

There is a lot of diversity in his school, kids of all backrounds and cultures and frankly, I like that.

Given the information you've given I don't know if its enough information to base a decision on telling you on what you should do. You want your kid to have structure, you made public option sound like it had more structure so I would go with that simply off what you
re saying but there's a lot more factors involved in the decision.
 
lindz

lindz

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For my oldest daughter I knew I wanted Montessori because it is a system I like, trust and have a lot of experience with (my mom is a Montessori teacher). She has always been quite advanced so I knew I wanted her to get a very solid start to schooling and I didn't like the public school district we were in at the time. I researched all Montessori schools in the area, toured a few and then chose the one that I liked best. My in-laws helped with half the tuition which also was nice.

My second daughter is semi-special needs. She has a developmental delay so she has been in programs to help out since she was 2.5. We put her in the public special needs preschool system when she was 3 and continued with that for a two. It would have been nice to also send her to Montessori but it would have never worked. She was in diapers until she was 3.5, she has social/emotion problems and is very far behind academically so she needed a very different type of schooling than my oldest.

I think you just need to choose whatever will suits the child best. One of the nice things about private school is that they are often a lot more culturally diverse so if that is important to you with her Japanese heritage, that could help out. And flipping out is pretty normal - the teachers are used to it. The kids learn pretty quick that they just don't do that at school (even if they still do it at home) so I really wouldn't worry about that.
 
Xarpolis

Xarpolis

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We looked at Montessori, and that was the one we liked least. The teachers at this particular school didn't seem to care much, and the setting of the school itself was very much like a classroom or a hospital. White walls, white floors. Very blah.

Building Blocks is the cheap one (extremely cheap, $145 per week, but it forces you on a 2 day per week schedule, 2:45 long days) is actually held at a local church. I'm agnostic, and my wife is a non-practicing Buddhist. Anyway, the preschool only rents space from the church. Nothing they teach is affiliated in any way to religion.http://www.preschoolandkinderindoylestown.com/

As for the expensive one, it's called Kinder Works -Daycare Centers in Doylestown, Montgomeryville, Limerick (215)345-0370| Kindergarten and Summer Campsand that's very expensive. Like $350 a week or something silly.
 
Hachima

Hachima

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My daughter has been going to a Touchstone pre-school for the last couple months and so far is seems like a good school (Chesterbrook Academy in your area if your location is accurate)Chesterbrook Academy Preschool | Chalfont, PAothersie search atChesterbrook Academy | Private Preschools, Elementary Middle SchoolsThey have 100s of locations and a well established cirriculum. You can see the month by month cirriculum atNLCI Curriculum Reference Guide

Its ~$800 a month for 5 days a week 1/2 days. The full day seemed more like daycare for the last half with a bunch of nap time/play time the last half and all the learning activities morning.
 
chaos

chaos

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I picked the one that cost the least and didn't have major incidents on file with the state.

In your case, I would go with the cheaper option until I saw a compelling reason not to. That expensive day care/preschool/whatever is probably not offering your kid more than the cheaper school, and the saved money could be used for culturally enriching activities that would actually have an impact on your kid. My wife works at a preschool, a really high dollar one that charges about twice what the school my kids go to does. They use the same curriculum, the school my kids go to has a history of kids with advanced/private school placement. The one my wife works at doesn't even track that. Like anything else, half the time you are paying for the brand.
 
Tarrant

Tarrant

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No nap time in Kindergarten that I'm aware, at least not at my sons school. He has it in pre school though after lunch for 90 minutes.
 
Kuriin

Kuriin

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Weird. We had it in Louisiana at a private Catholic school. It was the last year, though.
 
Vandyn

Vandyn

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We did a whole lot of research (my daughter started daycare when she was a baby). She went to a Goddard for the first couple of years and it was ok. She had a great daycare teacher who also happened to be a nurse which was great when she was a baby. We then moved to a different Goddard and didn't like it at all. At that point she was 3 and we put her in a Primrose School which is very good but very expensive. A lot of these daycares come down to who is watching your child, an expensive school like a Goddard may have high ratings but if most of the daycare workers aren't very good you're going to have a bad experience. As others have said, it depends on what you are looking for with your child but if cost isn't that big of a deal, I would recommend looking at a Primrose. It really helped my daughter especially at Pre-K getting her ready for Kindergarten.

ETA: When I was younger (early 80's) we had naps and milk. On 'special' days we had chocolate milk. My daughter didn't have any of that, just homework (which was unheard of when I was in Kindergarten).
 
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Tenks

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Honest question but is there any research to indicate that going to preschool leads to a more intelligent adult?
 
Hachima

Hachima

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I didn't go to preschool at all but went to a selective private school 7-12 and did well. Graduated with a 3.97 from a top rated masters program. Maybe it would have been higher if I went to preschool.
 
Vinen

Vinen

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Hachima_sl said:
I didn't go to preschool at all but went to a selective private school 7-12 and did well. Graduated with a 3.97 from a top rated masters program. Maybe it would have been higher if I went to preschool.
Click to expand...
Pre-school is just fucking daycare. Teach your kids at home like decent parents and don't offload it on others.
 
chaos

chaos

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Tenks_sl said:
Honest question but is there any research to indicate that going to preschool leads to a more intelligent adult?
Click to expand...
Does Preschool Actually Help Kids Succeed? - The Atlantic

And other links as well. TL;DR: Yes and no. It gives kids a leg up, but the advantage can quickly be lost if they end up going to the Gangsters Paradise school.

I would imagine there are social issues that really can't be replicated outside of a preschool that are very beneficial. I know anecdotally, my youngest daughter had a pretty severe speech delay and just 2.5 months in day care (she is still 2 and a half so it isn't quit preschool yet) has really, shockingly, improved her at a rate I didn't think possible.
 
Joeboo

Joeboo

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I mainly was sent to pre-school as a kid because I was an only child, and had no kids near my age on my street, so it was almost more for an ease into school/social interaction than it was for the learning. My mom was an English teacher who quit when I was born, so I was well educated(could read, count to 100, etc) before I even got to pre-school. But having that relaxed setting a couple days a week was nice before being thrown into full-blown school. That would have been quite the culture shock.

But yeah, pre-school doesn't serve a ton of purpose in todays world when most kids are already in daycare all day, its basically just daycare run by certified teachers.
 
Big Phoenix

Big Phoenix

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Wait so your mom quit work when you were born but then sent you off to preschool? lol
 
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Obtenor_sl

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Honest question here, someone correct me if I'm dead wrong given that I have no kids:

Isn't throwing out a bunch of money on preschool... crazy? In either preeschool young kids will play with play-dough, go to music class, draw/paint. It's like paying 300$ for little shoes that they'll wear for 2 months tops before they grow out of them.

Isn't it wiser to invest in higher level ed? like a nice high school/college/university? I don't remember SHIT from pre-school. I mean if you're loaded then ignore my post, but people on budgets, I would go for the 1/2 priced one that was good.
 
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