A good education is critical for any child’s future success, and parents are always invested in finding the best private schools and public schools for their children. This includes not only K-12 schools, but also finding good preschools as well. A preschool isn’t just a day care center; it is a dedicated academic setting for young students, which prepares them for elementary school in all sorts of ways. Finding the top private schools in the area, or narrowing down the list to the best public schools, will take some work, but the results will certainly be worth it. New parents, or parents who just moved to a new area, will typically look online for the best private school around, and/or the top rated public schools, including preschools.
Looking for Preschools
It is not mandatory for American children to attend preschool, or pre-primary education programs. Still, these prove highly popular, and now, more Americans than ever are sending their children (aged three to five) to the best preschools around. From 1990 to 2000, the rate of preschool attendance grew quite rapidly, and by 2015, some 87% of five-year-old Americans were enrolled pre-primary programs of some sort or other. At a preschool, a young student will learn how to learn, get used to following a teacher’s directions, and meet and play with their peers, not to mention access a variety of extracurricular activities.
Parents can look for good preschools in the area when their child becomes old enough, or when the family moves to a new city or county. Most often, the best schools are found online, and a fairly specific search is best. The parents can look up “best pre-primary private schools near me” or “top rated public preschools”, and include their ZIP code to narrow down the results further. The parents may look for public schools, private ones, or even both, and they can strike out schools that are deemed too far away, or those that are rated poorly or aren’t currently accepting new students. Now that the list is narrowed down, the family can evaluate the schools.
Touring local preschools in person is the best route to take, since this will give everyone a fair impression of what the school is like, and the parents can meet the staff. The parents can review the credentials of the teachers working there and see what the curriculum is like, and they can review the school’s level of funding, too. And of course, the parents will check to see if their child feels comfortable there and gets along with the staff. If the child does like that school, that may be promising. The family can tour a number of preschools like this and compare them, then decide which is best, and enroll their child there. Private preschools will charge tuition, but parents who can afford this will find the option attractive, since private preschools are well funded and have expert staff, making for a great education for the young students there. Still, a highly rated and well funded public preschool may be nearly as good in some cases.
Other Schools
A similar process can be used to find the best elementary, middle, and high schools for an older child, starting with an online search such as “best private middle schools nearby” or “top rated public high schools”. The family will tour those schools in person to evaluate them, and the child can later tell their parents why they did or did not like a particular school (a useful reference). Meanwhile, private K-12 schools are the minority, accounting for 25% of all schools and 10% of all American students, but they are well funded and tend to have expert staff on hand. In fact, private school teachers report low incidence rates of student apathy, and private high schools offer robust college counseling for students. Whether public or private, a good school is one where the student is accepted by their peers and properly challenged by the coursework. Also, a good school will provide any teams, clubs, or activities the student is interested in, from cheerleading to a football team to swim teams, debate teams, and dedicated arts programs. This should factor into any school search.