How to choose a daycare in Frederick County

Start with the people, not the brochure. The center that is right for your family is the one where the adults in the room have been there a while, where your child would be outside every day, where the hours actually cover your working day including July, and where you walked in at a busy hour and felt something settle. Everything else, from the name of the approach to the app to the paint, is detail.

Two questions that settle it

Maryland's own guidance for parents ends with two questions, and they are better than anything on a checklist: would your child feel happy and comfortable attending this program, and would you feel happy and comfortable leaving your child there? Every question below is a way of getting at those two.

Ask about the people first

Experienced parents say the thing they wish they had asked first is how long the teachers stay. Staff who stay are the best sign of a well-run place, and a room where the faces change every few weeks is the complaint parents make most often about the places they left. So ask the lead teacher, not the director: how long have you worked here? Ask what she likes about it. Ask who covers when she is at lunch or out sick, a regular floater the children know or whoever is free. Ask at what time of day rooms get combined, and how many children are in the room at 5:15.

Then ask whether every adult in the building has been background-checked before their first day, including whoever cleans. A good director answers that one without blinking.

Then the day

• Outside. How much, how often, and what keeps them in? Every day the weather allows is the right answer. "When it is nice" is not.
• Screens. Is there a television or a tablet in the room, and when is it on? Plenty of parents treat a TV in a preschool room as an instant no, and they are not being precious.
• Food. What is served and what you pack. Breakfast, lunch and two snacks included is a real difference to a family's week, not a perk.
• Rest. What happens to a child who does not sleep? Quiet time with a book is a good answer. Two hours on a mat in the dark is not.
• Trouble. What do they do when a child bites, or hits, or will not join in? Listen for a plan that involves you, not a threat.

Then the hours, and the summer

Ask for the closing time as a number and the closed days as a list. "Full day" is not a defined term, and some programs use it for a day that ends at two. Ask whether they run through the summer with the same staff in the same rooms, and ask what happens on a Frederick County Public Schools snow day, a two-hour delay and a professional day, because the schools close far more often than your office does. There is a whole guide to this if you need it.

Look up the record

Frederick parents pass one website around unprompted: checkccmd.org, where the state publishes every licensed program's inspection findings. Read them for anyone on your list. A few corrected findings over several years is normal; a pattern of the same finding, or anything about supervision or background checks, is not. Maryland EXCELS publishes a quality rating for programs that take part, and parents here will tell you they have been happy at a one-star center and uneasy at a five. The rating is a starting point, not a verdict.

A brand-new center has no record yet. That includes ours. If you are looking at a new place, ask them how they intend to earn one, and expect a straight answer.

Ask what is on top of the price

Parents here share what they pay with each other, and the thing that makes them angry is not the number. It is what showed up after. Ask for the total for a year: tuition, the registration fee, any supply or activity fees, the summer, and what happens to your bill when you take a vacation. Ask when the price last went up and by how much. Two centers thirty dollars a week apart can be two thousand dollars a year apart once those land.

Then go and see it at a bad hour

Ask to visit at 8:30 in the morning or 4:30 in the afternoon, not at 10:30 when half the children are outside and the rooms are calm. You want an ordinary day, not the show. Ask to walk into a room, not past a window; a place that is confident in an ordinary Tuesday will let you.

Once inside, stop listening to the person showing you around and watch. Do adults get down to the children's height? Does anyone speak to a child across the room in a raised voice? Are children absorbed in something, or drifting? Does the teacher know each child's name and something about them? What does it smell like, because a place that is cleaned properly does not smell of the diaper pail. And then notice how you feel. Parents who have done this say the gut feeling on the visit is the thing they trusted in the end, and the thing that turned out right.

Rules change, and so do programs. Before you rely on anything here, check it with the Maryland State Department of Education's Office of Child Care, or ask the center to show you.

We are opening a full-day Christian center in Frederick County. We are not licensed yet and cannot offer a place, but you can join our list and hear first.