How to Choose a Preschool (It's Not for the Faint of Heart!)

Are you the parent of a two- or three-year-old agonizing over where your child will hang his or her little backpack next year?  Are you currently in the throes of preschool open houses, waiting lists, applications, deposits, nights spent in sleeping bags to secure a place and other angst? If so, my prayers are with you. Seriously. Three years ago I was where you are now, and it was tough.  I made it through, and you will too.

When my first kid left toddlerhood, gained a little sister and had his third birthday, I started to consider preschool for him in the coming fall. I read everything I could Google or obtain from the libraries (my sincere apologies to Silver Spring library patrons if you were waiting on Maria Montessori's book those three, OK, five months I had it checked out; for the fines I paid I could have bought us all our own copies.) I hounded parents in Safeway, CVS, the pediatrician's office, the community pool. I pity any parent with a child three years and older that struck up a polite conversation with me in 2006. I attended every preschool orientation in the six neighboring zip codes, every school fair in the county. I e-mailed my real-life friend Tech Savvy Mama about once a day for a while there; not only is she a great writer and tech education expert, she is one patient friend.

After much middle-class-SAHM-hand-wringing and frustrated-former-professional-research, I narrowed down my criteria.  For my family and our situations, I settled on three-year-old programs that met two or three times a week for half days, were faith-based on our family's spiritual beliefs, ethnically diverse, located within a few miles of our home, had a small class size, cost less than $X per month and were not parent cooperatives. (Please know that this criteria was just what worked for our family schedules and finances and framework, it is NOT a commentary on five-day, coop, secular or other faiths' programs!) By narrowing the options down in such a manner and deciding what I wanted and didn't want, it was easier to limit applications to three preschools, rather than 13.

We were accepted into one program immediately, and placed on the waiting lists for the other two schools. Of course the two waiting-listed schools were morning programs and the one we got into outright was an afternoon program, which stressed me out. Mornings were better, right? My kid would be more alert, better behaved, less fussy in the morning and he was still napping in the afternoons. I was also thinking that with a morning program while my younger child was awake, I would be able to get more done, like exercise my body into Gabrielle Reese shape, do every errand imaginable for the family, work part-time from home, learn French and volunteer in Africa. You know, very realistic expectations of what I would do with six hours a week with only one child to care for.

Come June, we were still on the waiting lists and I became resigned that the afternoon preschool was where we should buy the sweatshirt, send the vaccination forms, set up the automatic tuition payments, coordinate summer playdates with other families. And you know, everything just fell into place. I stopped the daily fights for the daily nap, and my son magically started going to sleep at 7:45pm every night without a wimper. The afternoons while his little sister slept became a time that my son and I did crafts, played games, baked and became best buddies all over again, preparing him for afternoons of learning and cooperation come September. I loved the kids that would be his classmates and had massive girl crushes on the teachers and other mothers.  

I finally realized that my anxiety was unfounded and self-indulgent. I was lucky to have the cash to send my kid to a safe, warm place where he could make friends and gain independence a few times a week. I was darn fortunate that putting my child in another person's care was totally optional, since my psyche, personality, spouse and family budget were down with the whole SAHM thing. The school was accredited and award-winning, and the teachers were loving, experienced and genuinely enjoyed their jobs. The veteran parents had already created a community of caring in their commitment to the school. My kid would be happy here. He would happy at any of the schools. He would be happy if I was happy.

Of course we received two phone calls in August when on vacation offering us positions at both of the other schools, just as everyone said would happen. I didn't look back for a second and politely declined the offered spaces. My point for writing all this is to assure you that by this time next year, your child will be blissfully attending his beloved school, you will be one of the old-guard parents and you will watch your kid play Rudolph in the Christmas sing-along or similar preschool production. Any subsequent children you choose to send there will have family priority. You will never have to go through the preschool angst again.

Unless you move.

Jessica McFadden is a freelance writer of family features.  She lists activities for parents and all DC area schools' open houses (for no charge) on A Parent in Silver Spring.