Where parents review schools.
How do you choose preschool?
I still remember how helpless my wife and I were two years ago when we tried to choose the right preschool for Phillip. We wanted it to have clean environment, caring and loving teachers, big play yard and adequate outdoor time, healthy meals, bilingual, and of course, less expensive. I'm pretty sure many parents' list grow much longer than this. But the reality is right the opposite. No perfect preschool. Period.
We went online but couldn't find many local information about preschooling, especially first-hand reviews from real local parents. There were some generic information on Parenting.com. But we wanted LOCAL information. After all, you live LOCALLY.
We went through some community parenting sessions and got some, again, generic information. Most of the preschool tidbits were through word-of-mouth. But that's very limited information, and limited choices too. Plus, different parents have different criteria and standards. It's very hard to sort through the information if the sample is not large enough.
We then had to schedule interviews with many local preschools. And when we went, we tried to bring Phillip with us. I think that definitely helped. After all, it's him who's gonna stay there the whole day, and the whole week. Another tip was to trust your intuition. There was a nice school with very amiable director. But from the first sight, we both felt something wasn't right. And Phillip didn't seem to enjoy staying there either. Then we had to skip it, wondering what we really missed.
After a painstaking process, we found this Kiddo Land Learning Center, right off 680 at South Mission (Bay Area). The director was nice and caring. The teachers were young and energetic. Most of all, we can tell that they truly love kids. And we can tell the kids were truly happy there from their faces. Plus, they have a big play yard. Plus, it's English and Chinese bilingual. Plus, it's less expensive (less than $800/mo). But most importantly, and I had to say one more time, their teachers truly LOVE kids. Now my son Phillip has graduated from Kiddo Land this June. For the past two years, we've made lots of friends with other parents from Kiddo Land. Looking back, we think this was the rightest decision we made so far for our son.
So much for my story. What about yours?
We went online but couldn't find many local information about preschooling, especially first-hand reviews from real local parents. There were some generic information on Parenting.com. But we wanted LOCAL information. After all, you live LOCALLY.
We went through some community parenting sessions and got some, again, generic information. Most of the preschool tidbits were through word-of-mouth. But that's very limited information, and limited choices too. Plus, different parents have different criteria and standards. It's very hard to sort through the information if the sample is not large enough.
We then had to schedule interviews with many local preschools. And when we went, we tried to bring Phillip with us. I think that definitely helped. After all, it's him who's gonna stay there the whole day, and the whole week. Another tip was to trust your intuition. There was a nice school with very amiable director. But from the first sight, we both felt something wasn't right. And Phillip didn't seem to enjoy staying there either. Then we had to skip it, wondering what we really missed.
After a painstaking process, we found this Kiddo Land Learning Center, right off 680 at South Mission (Bay Area). The director was nice and caring. The teachers were young and energetic. Most of all, we can tell that they truly love kids. And we can tell the kids were truly happy there from their faces. Plus, they have a big play yard. Plus, it's English and Chinese bilingual. Plus, it's less expensive (less than $800/mo). But most importantly, and I had to say one more time, their teachers truly LOVE kids. Now my son Phillip has graduated from Kiddo Land this June. For the past two years, we've made lots of friends with other parents from Kiddo Land. Looking back, we think this was the rightest decision we made so far for our son.
So much for my story. What about yours?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lili Wu on
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Put on waiting list early! I'm experiencing the pain right now for not being able to register my kids anywhere because the waiting list is 6 to 9 months everywhere.
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An update, I have enrolled my kids to Kidango in Ohlone College. It is also a very nice place, big indoor room and big yard. They don't have bilingual though. The teacher-student ratio is the best I have seen: 1 to 4. They provide breakfast, lunch, snacks. And they do potty train. :) Cayden & Justin have a hard time getting trained at home. So far we have tried for 2 months, no visible progress. Hope the peer pressure will make it this time.
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