A licensed child care center in Hayward.

Preschools are not tested, scored, or ranked — not by California, and not by us. What the state does keep is a licensing record: how often inspectors visited, what they cited, and whether anyone complained. That is a safety floor, and it is on this page. Everything that actually makes a preschool good — the warmth of the adults, how a hard morning is handled — you have to go and see.