Bilingual preschool/school

natalyderets wrote:

I’ Natalia, come from Ukraine and plan to move to NJ once my spouse gets Visa.
Our daughter is 5 and we’re looking for a good daycare or kindergarten, bilingual at first I guess for her to learn English.
We don’t know how/where to start so that she feels safe and comfortable at her new place.
I heard, it’s better to find a good school first, and settle there.

In general, it's better to find a good school first, but unless you'll buy a house as soon as you move to NJ, there's no reason to commit yourself to a particular area.

IMO, you'll need to consider your spouse's place of employment first, not the school.  How far would he be willing to commute every day if your place of residence is near a good school but very far from his work?

Second, there are more than one good school in the state of NJ so moving houses in order to belong to a particular school is not a difficult thing to do.

Third, your daughter doesn't need an excellent elementary school just yet, not as a 6 year old (assuming you'll be in the States next year) who doesn't speak English (or speaks very little English).  What she needs before anything else is learning English to the point that she can speak it as easily as her native tongue. 

Fourth, you don't search for a good school, you search for a good school district, one that has a combination of good elementary school, good middle school (junior high), and good high school.  There's no sense to put your child in a good elementary school if she cannot advance to a good junior high and a good high school.  A good high school is more important than a good middle school, and a good middle school is more important than a good elementary school.

Because of all those reasons, especially reason #4, you shouldn't worry too much about a good school for your daughter, but a safe area to live whence your spouse has an easy commute to work.  In the mean time, to make the transition easy for her, your family probably should start making English language part of your daily communication.

natalyderets wrote:

Thanks so much for your comment, very substantial and clearing my fears up.
She’s learning it, watching movies and so on, we’re doing a lot to get ready before moving.
We’ll probably have this year to get her ready, have many classes of English this year here.
There was a vague opportunity to move in a few months, but not going to happen I assume.

After her 1st year in school, she will be talking better English than her classmates