School Admissions

Enroll Your Child at
C5 Children's School

We provide expert care for children as young as 6 weeks old and up to 5.9 years old at our San Francisco preschool and early education centers. Are you interested in enrolling your child at C5 Children’s School? If so, please take a look at our online application, school admissions resources, criteria, and policies below. 

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Application Information,
Criteria, and Policies

Application Information,
Criteria, and Policies

Application Information

We accept applications from families who meet the criteria below for their family and their child. A separate application is required for each individual child. 

Most all applications and payment of application fees are online. When we use the term “receive” in our policies, we mean that the application and payment are processed online and are automatically entered with a date and time stamp into our Application and Waiting List database. If, in a rare case, a hard copy application must be processed, “received” means when the document is physically received and date and time-stamped in our main office.

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Our Criteria and Policies for School Admissions Include:

  1. We accept applications for children who are chronologically and developmentally at least six weeks old through 5.9 years old. However, preschool programs, including ours, are only licensed for children up to 5.9 years old; at which time children typically leave the program.
  2. We only consider applications for children who apply for our full-day, full-year program. There is no part-time program.
  3. Priority is given to:
    1. The children of State of California employees for enrollment in our Toddler and Preschool Programs at our California State Building Center
    2. The children of San Francisco Public Utilities Commission employees
    3. The children of San Francisco City and County employees for enrollment in our Infant, Toddler, Preschool, and Pre-K Programs at our new San Francisco City Building Center
    4. The children of families who work or live in the immediate neighborhood for enrollment in our Infant, Toddler, Preschool, and Pre-K Programs at our new San Francisco City Building Center
    5. The siblings of children already enrolled in the program at either center or who have been enrolled in the program at either center.Currently, only 30% of our enrolled children come from these priority groups. So, 70% of enrolled children have come from families in the general public.
  4. An application must be completed before a child can be considered for enrollment or placed on the Waiting List for the program. An application is incomplete if it is not fully and accurately filled out and/or if it is not fully paid in the online process with the $75 application fee, or if applying by hard copy form, it is not accompanied by a valid check with the payment of the $75 application fee. No application fee is refundable.To be considered, the application must be current and renewed each year before the anniversary date of the original application. If renewed before the original application date, the applicant family can then keep the original application date as a higher priority for enrollment.All applicant families are asked to keep in regular contact with C5 during the year prior to their preferred enrollment date. The guidelines are to contact C5 once each month in the six months prior to the preferred enrollment date and every other month prior to that. C5 also uses the record of this regular contact as a secondary factor in creating a priority for choosing a child for enrollment in each of the preference categories listed below.
  5. When vacancies occur, they are filled first from the Application-Waiting List. A child is given a priority on the list according to these criteria and preferences: 

Order of Preferences for School Admissions

First Preference

“A child of a State of California employee” for enrollment into the California State Building Center. Or, “a child of an employee of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission” for enrollment into the new San Francisco City Building Center. For purposes of this admissions policy, a “child of an employee” refers to a child whose parents, guardians, or other relatives claiming the child as a dependent for tax purposes are employees who receive a regular paycheck issued by the department or agency mentioned.

The tiebreakers in this category are:

  1. A sibling is already enrolled in the program
  2. The earliest date of application receipt

Second Preference

“A child of an employee of the City or County of San Francisco” for enrollment into the new San Francisco City Building Center. Or, a child with a sibling who is already or has been enrolled in the program at either of the centers.

The tiebreakers in this category are:

  1. A sibling of an enrolled child or previously enrolled child
  2. The earliest date of application receipt for the child who is applying

Third Preference

“A child of a family member who works in or lives in the immediate neighborhood of the new San Francisco City Building Center” for enrollment in that Center. A definition of Immediate Neighborhood is available from C5 Children’s School’s main office.

Families are contacted for enrollment based on the family with the earliest date their application was received by C5.

The tiebreakers in this category are:

  1. The earliest date and time of day that the application was received by C5
  2. The family who has kept in regular contact with C5 during the year prior to their preferred enrollment date. The guidelines are to contact C5 once each month in the six months prior to the preferred enrollment date and every other month prior to that

Fourth Preference

All other children with families who understand and agree to abide by the philosophy and practices of our program and can meet the terms of the program.

  1. Notwithstanding the above preferences, a child’s place on the Waiting List does not create any entitlement to enrollment in the program. C5 retains full discretion to not accept any child during any part of the application and/or enrollment processes for any reason. Examples might be for developmental, educational, or administrative reasons.
  2. Places on the Waiting List are not transferable from one child to another.
  3. If a child is offered enrollment, and the offer is declined, the child will remain active on the Waiting List. The applications are valid for one year from the date of original application. The child will be eligible for future vacancies in accordance with the guidelines described above.
  4. The “Application Date” is considered by C5 to be the date that C5 receives the completed application form and application fee in our office. Your completed application form is date-stamped and your application fee is processed for deposit on the day they are received.Any application expires one year after it is received by C5, if the child on the application is not enrolled within that time. A new application for each individual child must be submitted before the expiration date on the previous application for continuous consideration and the date of the original application to be maintained as a priority. If a subsequent application is submitted after the expiration date of the prior application, the original application date priority will be lost, and the family will be placed on the Waiting List in line with the new date that the subsequent application was received by C5.
  5. When a child is offered enrollment in the program, all pre-enrollment procedures must be completed before the child’s first day. These include a Health Screening completed and a form signed by the child’s physician; all immunizations must be up-to-date and a copy of an official record presented to C5; all C5 administrative paperwork, including the enrollment packet forms completed and turned in; all preliminary, enrollment, and deposit fees paid; an orientation with both parents present; and, for all children other than infants, two brief 15-20 minute previews for the child to observe the new classroom and play area conducted one each day in the two days immediately before the one week phasing-in period.