Preschools in Palmetto, FL

Denise Gaeta Drizos

It's a little more of a drive down sr 70 but Community Christian is an amazing school!!! Great people!!

I agree with you, Sunny Daze always scores extremely high, but I only know one person who has gone there. I live in LWR though so it's not as convenient as a lot of others. I've heard many good things about All Gods, but their consistently terrible kin dergarten readiness scores concern me. They are so significantly lower than their counterparts in almost the same location year after year...something is wrong there. I'd need a really stellar explanation for that. And there may be one! My best friend's kids go to Woodland and the oldest will be in VPK, they are very happy there. My kids have gone to Little Ranchers, loved it but they have no official VPK, just a 4 year old room, and now go to Goddard, which is exceptional but I know has a very long (read never available) wait list for VPK.

Oh also check out Little Mustangs at LWR High School. Really awesome program, always high scores. Very popular. They'd be my personal tie (to sprouts) for part time preschool. Given the choice I'd prefer part time preschools to daycares because for the most part, the moms stay home and keep their kids home when their sick, which for us means less sickness overall. Sickness was huge for me when I researched...I heard bad sickness reports from Woodland, Kids R Kids, and Kiddie Academy. We loved A Readiness Academy, my daughter went there from 6-18 months, but she was never NOT sick...runny nose, pink eye, ear infections, stomach viruses...the day I started staying home the sicknesses stopped and she literally has not even had a runny nose since, and she is 4.5. My 2.5 year old has never even had the sniffles. They went to Little Ranchers (part time preschool) that whole time. So doing daycare again gave me anxiety, especially since I had friends at each of the dcs I listed whose kids were basically sick 100% of the time too. So far so good at Goddard. In that respect, I like a small daycare better, less sickness being passed around. Anyway, just my 2 cents since I've been researching the same thing for years. I actually wrote a few daycare comparison articles for local newspapers and magazines. smile emoticon

So in summary, here's what I would do if I were you. Call Sprouts tomorrow and pray really hard. Maybe do some begging, offer to sell your soul. wink emoticon Then call Mini Mustangs. Tour it because they are a little different than everyone else since they are c onnected to the school. See how you like it. Continue with your tours you have set up. Give All Gods some points for being part time. Consider that Woodland has a part time VPK class, but they still do a lot with the other classrooms. Then let us know what you decide!

I felt the same as you did about Mini Mustangs. I toured and thought it was chaos, too many people with access to my kids. The stuff they were doing was amazing and I have friends who loved it, but it just wasn't for me. I was also a SAHM for 3 years until last month. Now I work from home about 20 hours a week with no actual schedule, but my kids are in school from 9-3 because its possible my boss could call at any given moment so I need to be available. My 4.5 year old prefers Goddard to part time preschool only because she wants to be there all day, she's over just hanging out with me, friends all day is better to her. But if I was staying home still I'd do Sprouts, hands down. Their scores are always between 95-100, the moms are all sahms and are very close, the classrooms and playground are so adorable, it's part time so less sickness, it's a tight community with tons of involvement. Little Ranchers was the same way, I was close with all the moms, our kids were close, we all hung out directly after school and on the weekends, very different than Goddard where I don't know or see any of the parents. Not that it's all about what's best for me of course, but it is different. I only didn't recommend Little Ranchers because its on University so a bit far from you. Sprouts hasn't started yet, they are in the middle of summer camp. They follow the Manatee County school calendar, so they start August 18. Same as most part time preschools. That's the official start date for all VPKs in Manatee County. They might start unofficially a week or so earlier but I know camp is going on right now.

Sunny Daze has the best VPK scores out of the ones you listed, then Woodland, they are good too. All Gods doesn't score well on kindergarten readiness.