The CDC Enrollment Process

The Child Development Center serves children from both the Keene State College community and the greater Monadnock region. If you are interested in applying for a placement at the CDC, please fill out the application form at the bottom of this page.

In January, we take a census of currently enrolled families to learn of their plans for the following year. With this information we can anticipate vacancies for the following year, and begin to map out our classroom rosters. In February, CDC begins the work of composing classrooms using the application forms submitted by prospective families. We “rank” or “prioritize” application forms based on the following criteria:

• Faculty Status at KSC
• Staff or Student Status at KSC
• Does the family have a sibling already enrolled?
• Gender
• Age of child
• Special Needs
• Diversity
• Place on Wait-List
• Schedule request

Because we consider all these factors when making placement decisions, our “wait-list” could more accurately be described as a “wait-pool”. We have several goals when composing our classrooms:

a) assuring a balance of gender and age (demographics permitting)
b) meeting our responsibility to KSC Faculty for preference
c) fulfilling our fiduciary responsibility to the college to fully enroll classrooms

This last consideration affects such factors as schedule. We will give priority to families seeking full-time care. If a family approaches us seeking full-time placements for two or more children, we will give their application preference. We are committed to working with children who have special needs and have a very strong record of identifying and meeting individual needs of children. In order to accomplish that, we are mindful of classroom composition, so we will try to place children with special needs across classrooms to assure a balance. With respect to diversity, we wish to foster a community which embraces difference, while reflecting the diverse composition of our community.

Our goal is to notify families of a placement in late March and early April. When families receive a call from the CDC Director, they will be invited to have a tour and a conversation with the Director to learn more about the program. We encourage all new families to take advantage of this tour, as this is a valuable opportunity to learn all about the CDC, and to make sure that our program will be a good fit for them. After the tour the family has up to two weeks to accept the placement. While we believe this process is valuable, it can add delay to the wait for other families on the list. One family may take up to three weeks (scheduling the tour, having the tour, and then making an enrollment decision) before coming to a decision, and so other families still waiting may not hear from us until mid April.

For families seeking a toddler placement, please note that this classroom often has very few vacancies. Our infant room “feeds” into the toddler classroom during each enrollment cycle. This means that if five infants are age-ready to be toddlers by September, then five placements are theirs to have. If two toddlers are not yet ready to become preschoolers and remain in the classroom for an additional year (or semester), then there may only be one or two vacancies for new families.

Tips if you’re worried about finding care for your child:

We always recommend that you visit a variety of programs to locate exactly the right setting for your child. In the “Families: Community Resources” section, look for the link for Southern New Hampshire Services Child Care Resource & Referral. They can help you to locate all the other programs in our area. We encourage you to learn more about those programs and if you find them suitable, to place your child on those wait-lists as well. In that way you can increase your chances of assuring a good plan for care which meets your needs.