Family & Childcare (Specialty) in Charlotte
Beyond typical playgrounds and daycare chains, Charlotte's family resources include a couple of institutions with genuine national recognition and a large, formally authorized International Baccalaureate school network.
Discovery Place Kids-Huntersville / Discovery Place Science
Discovery Place (with its Huntersville children's location) is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums — the field's highest national standard, held by a small fraction of U.S. museums — and Discovery Place Science has been named among Parents magazine's "15 Best Children's Museums in the U.S."
ImaginOn: The Joe & Joan Martin Center
ImaginOn is a one-of-a-kind joint venture between the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and the Children's Theatre of Charlotte, combining a dedicated children's library with two professional theatre stages under one roof; the Children's Theatre of Charlotte describes it as a national model for integrating literacy, education, and the performing arts, and it has drawn feature coverage from the trade journal School Library Journal.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools IB Network
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has 17 schools formally authorized by the International Baccalaureate Organization as "IB World Schools," offering the Primary Years, Middle Years, Diploma, or Career-related IB programmes — a concentration of authorized IB campuses that is unusually large for a single U.S. school district.