Queens College Child Development Center

Reviews (1)

• Review from the Spring 2024 Early Education Survey

  May 2024

  REVIEW: This program is for the children of students (undergraduate, graduate, continuing ed), staff and faculty at Queens College. Student parents pay the Center tuition of under $20 a day per child! The class is exceptionally diverse, and the center has done an impressive job of supporting families’ different needs. Kids are eligible to attend once they're 30 months old and can stay until kindergarten. Kids also need to potty-train before starting classes (our kids had just potty-trained when they started and don't wear diapers there, and the school has been supportive re: accidents etc.) Our family has been thrilled by our experience! Post-covid, the Spring 2024 cohort is small—this semester it’s just 10 kids with a teacher, an educational director, and four student aides with varying part-time schedules (we were told the center has been licensed for up to 40 kids and has historically usually had about two classes, one of 2.5-3 year olds and a class of 3.5- 4-year olds, but has been smaller since Covid). The program's director has been there for nearly 20 years and has been great, and the educational director, who started mid-semester, has really impressed us, too. Schedule options are flexible to accommodate student parents' class schedules (we committed to the same weekly schedule for the whole semester, but we had options for start time, length of day and pickup time) and the kids have free play, a mid-morning snack, circle time, music and movement, outdoor play on a big, lovely private playground right outside the classroom (campus is beautiful), lunch time, nap time, then free play. Field trips to the campus library and studio arts center have been great, as have walks around campus. Our kids bring snack and lunch and the facility is nut-free and has a fridge. The classroom is beautiful and extremely well-furnished with lots of toys and other tools for learning, including dramatic play, art and fine motor skills. Educational modules this semester have included learning about families and communities and the five senses, and our kids' take-home art projects have been great. and this summer, the center offers summer camp during Queens College mini semesters in June and July (there's a sprinkler for the playground)! We commute via car from north Brooklyn and the drive takes us about 25 minutes—there's some metered street parking and a campus parking garage that are walkable from the center. Non-student parents can work remotely from campus, including from the campus library. Our kids are so happy here that we're considering keeping them here instead of accepting a DOE 3k offer! We highly recommend it—I honestly think daily about how more big institutions, from businesses mid-size and up to courthouses to hospitals, should offer something like the Queens College Child Development Center. It's been life-changing for our family to have such high quality, truly affordable and diverse early childhood education!; Amenities: Has outdoor space, Has after-school options; What would you change? I wish there was something like this closer to us, or more programs like this all around the city! We were told at the start of the semester that the center could help Queens College student families explore options to enroll kids at other CUNY child development centers, like the one on campus in Long Island City or at Brooklyn College, but we don't have first hand experience with that.