Open houses

[Anonymous]

Do you think it's beneficial to go to a school's (specificall, preschool's) open house or is it better to schedule your own private tour? I am wondering if you get a true feel for the school when they are "putting on a show" for you. Also, the open houses are generally during the weekend, correct? In which case, none of the students are there and you can't really see how the teachers are interacting with them and how the children in general are behaving.

Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

I have been to several open houses. My experiences were that we had student guides for our small group tours. Which was great b/c I had no administrator around so I could ask all the questions I wanted to and get a kid's answer -- INVALUABLE. I also liked open houses because I got to talk to many school parents so I could see if these were people I wanted to spend the next x number of years with. It also gave me a chance to sit back and observe -- do things run on time, do the kids participate in the presentation or is it a slide show, who talks to whom, is anybody tense, etc.