Wow, we had such a great experience at Preschool of America! They helped us out of a very serious…read moresituation, where our son's daycare closed suddenly. They took us in and were so considerate of our situation while we figured out our long-term solution. On the administrative side, Stephanie is a wonderful and responsible director. On the academic side, the teachers and students welcomed our son with warmth and made him feel at home, helping him to make a quick adjustment to the new environment.
There were so many things that we loved about POA that our previous daycare didn't do. They send daily photos of what the kids are up to through a secure mobile app, so you feel more connected. They provide daily report cards for every student, listing out activities, learning progress and behavior. They use a lot of music and physical interactivity to enhance the learning process. Their catered lunches were also high quality and diverse.
When we were researching daycare options, I recall reading a few bad comments which caused me some concern, so I really wanted to address the inaccurate comments in my review of POA. First of all, the environment is very clean and brightly lit, with children's artwork all over the place. Each room has windows allowing natural sunlight to come in. Most of the classrooms and gym are on the outer edge of the building with direct sun. Two of the classrooms for the very young children/babies were on the interior, but with windows facing the outside windows and direct views outside. The children at that age are still crawling or too small to see out the windows anyway. This seems to be a common practice, and was how our previous daycare was designed as well.
When our previous daycare shut down, we learned a lot about the economics of what it takes to run a daycare versus what you pay. We tried getting together with 3 or 4 other families to share the cost of a private teacher, and traded off using our apartments to house them. However, it became clear very quickly that it would not only be much more expensive than daycare, but the learning environment wasn't nearly as good. The typical daycare costs of around two thousand dollars per month originally seemed like a lot to us as new parents, but if you do the math of how long they are watching your child, it breaks down to around $7.50 per hour. That's less than minimum wage, and when you factor in the lunches, diapers, activity supplies, etc that are included, there is no way you could ever match that.
After a month, our previous daycare re-opened and is was an EXTREMELY difficult decision to make about which one to choose long-term. Ultimately, our son missed his friends too much, and the location at our previous place was a half mile closer, so we ended up going back. However, we also would have been quite happy to stay at POE as his permanent daycare.
So to sum it up, we highly recommend Preschool of America!
