Education and Childcare Directory

This section of the Vanguard Directory covers the people who teach and care for children, and a few who teach adults. It includes care and early learning, daycares and preschools; academic help, tutors and test prep centers; and skills and activities, music teachers, swim instructors, martial arts schools, dance studios and driving schools.

Regulation is strongest where children are left in someone else’s care. Daycares and most preschools are licensed and inspected by a state agency, and inspection reports are usually public, so look them up. Driving schools are licensed in most states and their instructors certified. Tutors, music teachers, coaches and studio owners are mostly unlicensed, so ask about background checks, credentials and references instead. In every case ask about adult-to-child ratios, how the business handles emergencies and sick children, what the contract commits you to and how you can leave it, and what fees sit outside the tuition: registration, materials, testing, recitals, uniforms.

Every business in this section wrote its own listing, and a person reviewed it before publication. If you teach or care for children, apply to get listed — free, and it takes a few minutes.