One of the best ways to raise the blood pressure of a San Francisco parent is to start talking about preschool.
Application deadlines. Essays. Rejections. Tuition. It’s a recipe for stress and worry.
The standard advice is to tour preschools the fall before you want your child to start, narrow down a small group of schools you’re interested in based on your priorities, apply and don’t be discouraged if your child ends up on a wait list — many kids eventually get accepted.
That’s great advice. But I didn’t follow any of it and am about to send my son to his second year at a lovely city preschool.
Here’s a heresy: It’s easy to get your child into preschool in San Francisco.
Now, it’s certainly not easy to get your child into every preschool. There are plenty that have long waiting lists, applications that demand parents write ridiculous essays and parents who try to pull strings to get their child that precious acceptance letter. There is at least one highly regarded preschool that requires parents to apply from birth in order for their child to have a chance at admission when she turns 21/2, a regrettable policy that only heightens parental anxiety about the entire system.
Nor is the process easy to navigate. Preschool is not a standardized program; some schools enroll 2-year-olds; some don’t start until age 3. Some schools offer only part-time or half-day programs; others are full-time programs that accommodate working parents. Some schools are run out of private homes; others have free-standing campuses. Some schools have rolling admissions; some admit children only once a year. These distinctions often aren’t clear to first-time parents. Also confusing is the panoply of early education philosophies the schools espouse, from Montessori to Waldorf to Reggio Emilia to language immersion.
But the confusion and stress of the preschool search and application process leads parents to believe that preschool is a scarce resource in San Francisco. And that’s simply not true.
“I think that there are enough spaces to serve the San Francisco families that we have; in fact, I think we have more than most cities,” said Mechele Pruitt, director of San Francisco Parents Place, a resource center for parents and children. Popular schools have wait lists, Pruitt said, but new preschools open every year.
Pruitt’s observations reflect my own experience. Though our preschool search had some twists and turns, in the end my son, Nate, was accepted at two excellent programs without too much effort on our part.
When Nate was a little over a year old, my husband, Aaron, and I started doing a little research into preschools. He was going to a great in-home day care, but it focused on younger kids, and most children were ready to leave when they turned 2. However, Nate was still so young that it was hard to get serious about the process; besides, we figured we could always enroll him in another home-based program more suited to older children.
I did have one preschool on my radar: Phoebe Hearst, a decades-old preschool located near Hayes Valley that took kids starting at age 2, ran a full-day program in our price range, and served a hot lunch and snacks during the day, a huge convenience for a working parent. However, by the time I called the school in the middle of the fall, all their tours were booked, and though their simple application is little more than a form on which you write your child’s name and basic information, the school does require parents to go on a tour before they can file one. I called back periodically over the next few weeks to see if any tour spots would open up; on the last day I called, the person in the office apologetically explained there was no room on the last tour, but suggested I check back sometime in the middle of March after acceptances had gone out and parents had started making enrollment decisions. You never know if something might open up, she said.
In the meantime, we applied to a new Spanish-immersion preschool that was opening in our neighborhood and were accepted. Nate’s best friend from day care would be attending, so it seemed like a good fit. Even so, I called Phoebe Hearst back as I’d been instructed; within a couple days I was touring the campus with the director, and by the end of the week, Nate had been accepted. Choosing between the two schools was tough; he would have done well at either one of them. But in the end, we liked the campus and the program at Phoebe Hearst a bit better and, of course, the hot lunch.
Nate has thrived at his preschool, but I know he would have done great at most any other preschool in the city. And I remain convinced that even if he hadn’t gotten into the two preschools we applied to, we would have found a spot for him at another good program. The truth is, people move and change their plans; spots open up all the time. I have yet to meet a San Francisco family whose 4-year-old remains unschooled in the arts of finger painting, block building and sharing.