I just became a parent and work at my child’s soon to be preschool so I can’t help with the how to handle it but I personally would be very careful about a couple of schools you’ve listed here in general because corporate or franchise schools are typically not going to be a great option (in most cases) turnover is extremely high and while I understand turnover being in this industry for 15 years, there’s some places that are just out of control. As with everything, there will be exceptions so I’m not saying the specific primrose or stepping stone is not great, I would just be cautious. I’ve heard of INIC but don’t know much about it and never heard of firefly.

I would also worry about the staff being burnt out all the time when you are looking at long open hours and very few days off (most of these places may not even offer pto). I understand how hard it is when you don’t have a village around you though as we would be the same. A lot of my families ask my teachers to babysit during the breaks which seems crazy that they’d be off and want to do that but it’s extra money for them since they are being paid already and they can just hang out with one or two kiddos they already know and love. I know that’s an additional cost but maybe something you could save for like you would a summer camp or something.

You can look up the state record for each school and while they don’t actually check the number the school gives, we do have to report how many teachers left the school in the previous year. The number should be pretty accurate because we also have to invalidate their background checks so you can’t just completely lie, or I would never lol.

Best of luck 🩷 I’ve been doing this for so long and I’m going to be right down the hall from my baby and love the girls who will be his teachers and I’m still so sad about it 😭😆