Licensed Preschool in Inglewood, CA

Preschool in Inglewood

As of August 2026

Inglewood comes close to an even split, with family child care homes holding a modest lead: 63 homes to 51 child care centers among the city's 114 licensed providers. Preschool coverage is strong, reaching 86 percent of providers. Combined licensed capacity totals 3,270 children. Every provider is licensed through the California Department of Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division (CCLD), and CloverMap lists Inglewood's full roster for parents to browse.

What to know about childcare in Inglewood

Inglewood's child care roster is fairly balanced, with a modest tilt toward home-based care. Of 114 licensed providers, 63 are family child care homes and 51 are child care centers, about 55 percent home-based. Families here will see both formats well represented in a typical search. Parents new to licensed child care often assume one format is inherently better, but the right fit usually comes down to a child's temperament and a family's daily logistics: center hours may align more predictably with a standard work schedule, while a family child care home can sometimes offer more flexible drop-off and pickup arrangements.

Combined licensed capacity across the 114 reporting providers is 3,270 children, averaging about 29 per provider, a moderate figure reflecting the roster's near-even mix of centers and family child care homes. It's worth remembering that a licensed capacity figure describes how many children a provider is permitted to enroll, not how many openings exist on a given day. Actual availability shifts constantly as children age out or families relocate, so this citywide number is best used as a planning benchmark rather than a guarantee of a specific opening.

Age coverage in Inglewood is solid across the board: infants and toddlers are each served by 73 providers, 64 percent, 98 providers serve preschool-age children, 86 percent, and 66 providers, or 58 percent, serve school-age children. For families mapping out care across several years, knowing which providers serve multiple age bands up front can simplify the search considerably, since a single provider that follows a child from infancy through the preschool years spares parents the work of re-searching and re-enrolling at each stage.

All Inglewood providers are licensed through the California Department of Social Services' Community Care Licensing Division. CCLD licensing applies the same baseline staffing, group-size, and safety standards to both centers and family child care homes. A license is not a ranking or endorsement of one provider over another; it simply confirms the operator has met the state's threshold requirements to legally operate. Parents researching further should treat a CCLD license as a baseline credential, then judge day-to-day fit through a tour, a conversation with staff, and their own sense of the environment.

With the format split this close, Inglewood parents can weigh a center like A BRIGHT BEGINNING CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER against a comparable number of family child care homes without either option being scarce. CloverMap lets Inglewood families filter by format, capacity, and age group served. Starting a search by deciding on format, then filtering by the age group a child currently needs, tends to narrow the list to a manageable number faster than browsing every listing one by one.