Making sure you've chosen the right child care facility for your child is often an ongoing process. Here are some of the things that you can do to evaluate a child care facility.

Learn About the Facility

The first thing that you can do is make sure to learn enough about any child care center that you introduce your child to. This means, before bringing your child to the center, you've spoken with the director and visited for yourself. You might want to schedule drop-bys to see how things are being run at various times in the center. Even once your child starts attending the child care facility, you could still drop by occasionally to make sure that all of the children are getting great care.

Talk with Staff

Another thing that you can do is build a good line of communication with the staff who are caring for your child. You can get a good sense of how the care is going from what the staff tell you about your child. Do they seem to know your child's dislikes and likes, and can they tell you how your child has been doing in the center? It's a great sign that they are forming a unique relationship with each child under their care.

Talk to Your Child

Even if your child is young and can't judge the preschool for themselves, you can tell a lot by how happy and excited they are to go to preschool each day. They might share activities they've done that day, other students that they enjoy spending time with, and staff members that they like. If they don't have much to say about their time in preschool, it might not be such a stimulating environment.

Talk with Other Parents

It also helps to talk with other parents to see how happy they are with the preschool. By pooling information, you can learn more about issues and selling points of your preschool. Someone else's child might talk more about their experience, or another parent might spend more time at the center and have more insight into the daily experience.

Compare Amenities with Other Centers

Finally, just because you've got your child in one preschool, that doesn't mean you can't look at other options in your price range. You might find a child care option like Country Day School that has better facilities, staff or activities that could enrich your child's early years.