If you are interested in a spot at the School, please fill out a waitlist form on our website and then contact us to come to an open house or arrange a tour. After you have had a chance to see the School and you have paid the waitlist fee, you may be wondering what to do next. The process is really simple and it only requires a few minutes of your time each month.

First and foremost, STAY IN TOUCH! We need to know that you are still interested in a spot, have not found other care, or, if you are pregnant, all of your new baby’s information after he or she is born. Every time you contact us, it is written on your waitlist form. Most people worry that they are going to be bothering us if they are regularly e-mailing or calling. You’re not! We enjoy getting to know prospective families and it helps us determine which candidates continue to be interested in a space.

It is very difficult to give estimates as to when we are expecting openings. The enrollment process is rather tricky, especially for infants. Current families get priority for siblings and this can take up a lot of the openings. On the other hand, families sometimes move or have other changes in circumstance that causes unexpected openings. As a result, spots can become open much sooner or later than we anticipate. This is why we encourage families to have several care options in place and to keep in touch about your interest and flexibility. Typically, offers of enrollment will start at the beginning of a month. Flexibility in your enrollment start date can improve your chances of getting an offer.

When a spot becomes available for your child, we will notify you to see if you are still interested. If you are, we will send you a formal offer email. You will need to send in a non-refundable deposit equal to one month’s tuition to secure your spot. You will also receive a packet of information including an application, a copy of this handbook, registration forms, medical record request forms, and other documents needed for your child’s folder. When your deposit and registration fees are collected, the spot is officially yours!

Expecting a new addition to the family? Be sure to get on the waitlist as soon as you know that you will want an additional spot at the School. While we do our best to accommodate our current families, we cannot always guarantee that a spot will be available. The best way to ensure a spot is open for you around the time of your preference is to get on the waitlist as soon as possible. Simply fill out the online waitlist form and mark that you are a current family. When the form is completed and the waitlist fee is submitted (which gets credited to your registration fee at the time of enrollment), you have secured your place in line for an available spot. While we cannot make any guarantees, when enough notice is given, we are typically able to have spots available for current families within one to two months of the requested start date.

There is not a simple answer to this question.  In terms of the date you got on the waitlist, you might be 30^th.  But, you may be the 10^th in line for an infant spot.  And, if there are 9 people ahead of you for infant spots, 3 of them may not want a spot until after your preferred date.  Because of these types of factors, we cannot give simple answers to the question of where you are on the waitlist.

In addition to the issues described above, families should understand that there are many factors, such as luck and how well your child or family matches with a particular spot, that determine when and if you will get an offer.  For example, sometimes a spot must be filled with a child born in a certain month because of when that child will need to transition to the next room, and the child at the bottom of the list is the only one born in the needed time frame.  Other times, a spot might come up on short notice and be offered to a family who is able to be more flexible about their start date or how much notice they need.  This is one of the reasons we encourage families on the waitlist to send emails every so often checking in and updating us of their status.

If you decline the spot, you may be moved to the bottom of the list with the date that the spot was offered as your new date that you were placed on the waitlist. We won’t move you down the list in an instance where we offer the spot to you on short notice (i.e., we don’t give you at least 1 month’s notice in advance of the start date) or the offer we make to you is not within 1 month of your preferred start date.

Absolutely!  We like to hear from families on the waitlist.  Please do not feel like you are bothering us.  By contacting us, it lets us know that you are still interested in joining the School, even if you got on the list several months ago.  Feel free to call, but emails are best (such as “still interested and hoping something opens up in January or February”, “having a family member watch the baby and can start on short notice any time”. “found a spot somewhere else, but still interested if something opens up”, etc.).

We want people on our waitlist to be certain that they want a spot at our School.  Also, managing the waitlist takes a great deal of time and effort.  We often have several hundred families on the wait list at one time.  We try very hard to keep in contact with all of these families and we expend numerous resources in doing so.  We are a non-profit organization and need to do our best to recover all of the resources we expend in our operations.  The waitlist fee will be applied to your registration fee if your child is enrolled in the School.  Also, do not feel like you need to pay the waitlist fee right away.  Feel free to fill out the online form and then come for a tour or open house and then decide if you want to pay the fee.  We just ask that you please let us know if you decide you are not interested after filling out the online form.