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Choosing a daycare center from afar
March 2014
I will be relocating to the East Bay from New England this summer and am trying to find a full time daycare for my 1 year old daughter. Although I've read many reviews on this site and visited a few centers in person when last out in California, I am not able to return to visit the remaining centers prior to my move (although I have family nearby who may be able to).
I am wondering if anyone can offer comparisons or share their experience with the following centers that we are looking into. They are all currently full, but we are on the waiting lists and I am trying to figure out how to choose one versus the other given my limited information/exposure (and with the hopes that my daughter gets offered a spot in at least one of them!) The centers we are considering are:
- Model School (Berkeley)
- Blue Skies (Oakland)
- St Johns (Berkeley)
- Aquatic Park School (Berkeley)
- Daisy Child Development Center (Oakland)
- Mills College Preschool (Oakland)
Also, any advice on choosing childcare while living in a different state would be helpful! We currently have our daughter in a fantastic University (where we work) day care center with very low student: teacher ratios (1:3 most of the way through), plenty of exposure to outdoors and art, and caring, developmentally minded teachers. These are our priorities when looking into a center in CA. Thank you! searching from afar
It sounds like you may be joining UC Berkeley? If so, contact the Calcierge, Lisa Bagnatori for help. She did this for us!
Welcome to the Bay Area! We have friends who are at and love the Model School, Blue Skies, APS, and Daisy. We visited Blue Skies and the Model School for infant care; especially loved Blue Skies (but they have a long waiting list, as you've no doubt discovered). None of them have 1:3 ratios beyond the infant rooms, though. Of those, I think you'd be fine with any; I don't know St. John's or Mills, so can't speak to them.
However, my bigger concern with your list is how geographically scattered it is. You don't say where you will be living or working, but that will make a HUGE difference. Rush hour traffic in the Bay Area is horrific (worse than any part of New England that I can think of--I'm also a transplant). So, for instance, you do not want to choose one of the East Oakland centers (Blue Skies, Daisy, or Mills) if you plan to live and work in Berkeley, or one of the Berkeley centers if you will live and work in Oakland. The commute will consume your life. Really--I know it looks quick on paper (and it is when it's not rush hour), but we've done it going both ways and it's awful.
Consider St. John's, Model School, or APS if you will live in Berkeley and commute to Oakland (or vice versa) or live/work in Berkeley. Consider Blue Skies, Daisy, or Mills if you will live in East Oakland and commute to Downtown Oakland or Berkeley, or if you will live in Oakland/Berkeley and commute to the South Bay. We do know a few people at Blue Skies who live in Central Oakland and go out and back and feel it's worth it, but it's a trek during rush hour. You do NOT want to be commuting out there from Berkeley and back again. (And similarly, you do NOT want to be commuting from Oakland to the Berkeley centers and back again, either.) That would drive my decision more than anything else. Also, if you will be at Cal, you may also want to consider the university daycare centers. Another East Bay parent
I've had two kids at Shu Ren International preschool for the last three years and it has a good amount of structure. (It's worked really well for both of our girls, but some other parents have complained lightly that it is too structured for their kids.) It is Mandarin immersion, not sure how you feel about that but there are plenty of non-Chinese speaking families there. It is also an IB (International Baccalaureate) school. I didn't realize the IB curriculum extended to preschool, but I have been really impressed with it (although mostly with the 3- and 4-year old classes; 2 is still pretty young to benefit from any curriculum.) They have structured lessons around ~4 topics throughout the year, and take a Socratic approach to lessons during circle time that seems really engaging for most of the kids. Each class also has weekly lessons including music, cooking or gardening, and library/storytime (in addition to daily circle time in their regular classroom). It's not terribly far from Ashby BART.
They also have after-school care with optional enrichment programs like soccer, ballet, etc.
Good luck!
I really highly recommend EBI - escuela billingue internacional located on Alcatraz. Both my kids started at 2 1/2 and thrived at the school with small class sizes and lots of personal attention and the teachers are amazing. My daughter is now an 8th grader and my son is a sophomore at Bentley in lafayette. He was accepted to all the school the he applied to (parochial odowd, st marys, de al salle and Head royce, wait listed at college prep) and was very prepared for HS. Happy to discuss this with you and they also offer competitive financial aid.We didn't qualify until he was in kinder since they attend to the needs of the upper grades first but I would explore it and not let the tuition deter you as its inline with other private schools in the area like Redwood Day, EB, Headroyce etc.
Our children attended preschool at American International Montessori school (AIM), which is a language-immersion Montessori school in South Berkeley. Families can choose the Mandarin track or Japanese track. The classroom is highly structured, and based on the Montessori principle of "Freedom within limits;" children have the autonomy to choose their work within a range of presented works. By the time the children reach their third year in the classroom, they are working on multiplication, reading and writing in their target language, as well as refining motor skills through a variety of handiwork (sewing, beads, painting, etc.).
The teachers are immensely caring and lovely. Can't recommend highly enough!
Check out Hummingbird Montessori. It’s in Albany, but worth a little drive. The students have daily opportunities to do developmentally appropriate “work” (Montessori term for purposeful activities). Kids choose engaging projects to explore independently. On our visit day I was impressed by how intently focused all of the children were working. Both of my kids transitioned to drop off there seamlessly and were happy to go each day.