The time to tour daycares nears. You’ve done the first part of your daycare search and now you need to take the plunge and visit a few of the best programs. But what should you look for when you do your tours? And what are the best questions to ask a daycare director when you meet with her?
Knowing how to separate a good from a great daycare can be a daunting task. Especially so if you’re unfamiliar with what makes for a high-quality daycare program.
We’re here to help!
When you go on tours of daycare programs you’ll likely have an opportunity to do a Q&A with the daycare director. Ask to have a meeting with the Director if one isn’t offered to you. A one-on-one with a child care Director is one of the best ways to get specific questions about the program answered. Your meeting with her doesn’t need to be lengthy. You’ll find that 20 minutes is often enough to get your most important questions answered.
If you’re unsure of what to ask, here are 10 important questions to ask a daycare director. These questions will help you identify programs that are truly high quality. You don’t need to ask all of these questions. Pick the ones that are most important to you. It is also likely that there are questions not on this list that you want to ask. Compile a complete list of around 5-7 of your most important questions that you want to be covered in your meeting.
What curriculum do you use?
A daycare’s curriculum is a big part of the overall approach to how child care programs care for and teach children. Most high-quality daycares will use a curriculum of some kind. The curriculum will provide structure and guidance toon how the program goes about working and caring for kids, what they focus on in terms of academics, and how they support children with their social-emotional learning.
Sometimes the curriculum is based on age while other parts of the curriculum will outline a general all-purpose approach to care and teaching. Some child care curricula are very tailored to a specific style of teaching and learning. Some examples of these specialized child care curricula are Montessori or Reggio Emilia. You should be able to tell from a child care program’s website whether they use a specialized approach because it will be a big part of how the program markets itself. For these programs, the curricula will be central to how the teachers interact with kids.
So an important question to ask a daycare director is what curriculum they use. Also, inquire as to how they tailor that curriculum to children of different ages and needs. Knowing the curriculum will allow you to do some of your research to determine whether that approach is right for you and your children.
2. How do you prepare preschoolers for Kindergarten?
A big part of daycare for older children means getting them ready to start formal schooling in Kindergarten. Making the leap to Kindergarten is a big step for many kids. Preparing preschoolers emotionally and academically is an important aspect of a quality daycare program.
One question to ask a daycare director is what they do to prepare kids to transition to kindergarten. Are older daycare kids given increasingly more opportunities to grow academically and emotionally? Is independence in daily care routines supported? Are children assessed to see how they are progressing academically?
Asking these questions will give you as a parent a sense of how seriously a daycare program treats the transition to kindergarten. A daycare program with an established plan for this transition is demonstrating that they are committed to ensuring quality care and learning for the older children in the daycare.
3. Do you have special support for kids with special needs?
Children with special needs have families that require daycare just as children without special needs do. Not all daycares are equipped to handle children’s unique needs. Similarly, some child care programs can handle certain types of special needs but not others.
If your child has special needs, inquiring about how a daycare program plans to support your child is of high importance. It is not always necessary that the program itself can meet all of your child’s needs. However, the daycare director should be able to demonstrate how they will work with you and other services to tailor the program to your child’s needs.
Ask the child care Director how they will work with you to ensure your child’s needs are met. The Director should be able to give you specific examples of how they’ve worked with other families with children with special needs in the past. A great daycare will have documentation of these plans. It can be helpful to have such documentation so you have something to refer back to if things go off course at some point in the future.
Sometimes the support provided to your child will take the form of active willingness to work with other services (like support through a school district) to allow for individual therapy during daycare hours. Other times it might mean coordinated transportation to another program for part of the day for individualized care. And yet other times it may mean working with you to develop a plan to meet your child’s unique needs.
4. Do you have a safety plan?
Safety is a key component of quality for any daycare program. Understanding a daycare program’s safety plan is the first step to determining whether it meets your family’s standards. One of the challenges of understanding how a daycare program handles safety is that there are just so many specific kinds of safety that need to be addressed. It can feel overwhelming to try to cover all of these areas. Ask for any documentation of the child care program’s safety plan so you have something to refer back to.
Here are a few examples of questions to ask a daycare director when it comes to safety. These are inclusive of all aspects of safety but will address many of the most common concerns that parents frequently have.
How is food handled?
What is the plan for severe weather?
What happens when one child is violent (example: biting) towards another?
How are kids kept safe on the playground?
Who is allowed in the building and how is it secured?
5. What types of physical exercise are provided?
Physical activity is just as important to healthy development for young children as academic enrichment. Young kids need plenty of unstructured play to be able to thrive. Great child care programs will prioritize physical activities by providing a variety of different options for movement. These options should include at least one space for outdoor play and indoor play.
One question to ask a daycare director is how the program ensures their kids get plenty of daily exercise. You’ll want to follow up to see that the program has both indoor and outdoor options. Additionally, there should be adequate physical activity opportunities for kids of all ages. This means having equipment that is the right size for kids who are ever-growing and changing.
6. What education and training are required of teachers?
The education and training of daycare teachers is an important factor in the overall quality of the program. Daycare teachers with education specific to early childhood development and teaching methods are typically better teachers. On-going training is also extremely important to keep teachers up-to-date on the latest science in early childhood.
Ask a daycare director questions about the educational background of the teachers in the program. Also, inquire as to what ongoing training is provided to teachers to ensure they keep their existing skills current and build new skills. The Director should be able to tell you what the expectations are of lead teachers versus assistants. In many child care programs, lead teachers will be expected to have higher qualifications.
Sometimes the qualifications will vary based on the ages served in the classroom. Programs may require higher qualifications for teachers of preschool classrooms that are preparing children for Kindergarten. Teachers in infant classrooms may be required to have special training in emotional support as that is a skill that is essential for caring for very young children.
7. What are the program’s closure policies?
Another important question to ask a daycare director on a tour is about the program’s school closure policies. A good daycare will have these policies outlined in a parent handbook. You should understand what these policies are so that you can plan accordingly should the child care program be unexpectedly closed. You may need to line up backup or drop-in daycare options to cover times when your primary child care program is closed.
There are expected and unexpected reasons a daycare program might close. Here are some of the most common ones:
Holidays: Most daycare programs will close on holidays like Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Teacher training: Some daycare programs will have teacher training days for all of their staff when the program closes down. A schedule of these days should be made available to parents on at least a yearly basis.
Cleaning: Many daycare programs will shut down for a full week to do a deep clean and rearrangement of their classrooms.
Vacation break: Family daycares should be able to provide a schedule at least yearly of when the program is closed for the provider’s vacation.
8. How do teachers support social-emotional learning?
Social-emotional learning is an important part of a child’s daycare experience. Learning to manage emotions, understand who they are, and develop self-control skills are critical to the healthy development of young children.
One question to ask a daycare director on a tour is what the program and its teachers do to ensure healthy social and emotional development for the children it cares for. In some cases, the curriculum the daycare program uses has a social-emotional component that outlines the approach. Often the curriculum is supplemented with program policies and teachers’ styles to support social-emotional learning.
A quality daycare program should be able to outline the various ways it supports children’s social-emotional learning. Additionally, part of that outline should include what they do when social-emotional learning gets off track. Children who struggle in this area should receive extra support and care from their teachers and the program to help them be successful.
9. How are children’s individual needs addressed?
Broad program policies are necessary for giving daycares structure. Planning to provide individualized attention to children is equally important. A great daycare will be able to acknowledge and support the uniqueness of your child to help them thrive.
One question to ask a daycare director is how teachers go about providing such individualized attention. One common strategy that teachers use is assessments that let them tailor learning based on a child’s strengths and weaknesses. Another common strategy is teacher conferences and regular communication with parents. This allows the teacher an opportunity to get parents involved in their children’s care and learning.
Individualized needs are especially important for young children with special needs. A high-quality daycare program should be able to outline how they individualize care and learning to meet children’s unique needs.
10. How are food allergies addressed?
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that around 8% of kids have food allergies. If your child is one of the 8%, food preparation and handling is probably top on your list of questions to ask a daycare director.
Specifically, you’ll want to know how the school ensures safe food preparation so that your child isn’t exposed to his allergens. If food is brought from home, are children with allergies separated during mealtime? Are certain foods not allowed at all? If food is prepared on-site, how does the child know what to eat?
These are a few questions you’ll want to ask a daycare director to dig into their food handling approach. You’ll also want to work with your child’s teachers to ensure they know of your child’s allergies and understand what steps you take at home to avoid their unsafe foods.