A 69 item checklist designed to aid parents of school‐age children with selecting quality day care centers was developed following an extensive review of the professional and empirical literature. The checklist items were then submitted to a group of child development experts and a group of parents to obtain feedback on whether each item (1) characterized high quality day care for school‐age children, (2) could be easily understood by nonprofessional raters, and (3) was descriptively clear so that raters could reliably judge its presence or absence in a day care center during a brief observation period. Following revisions, the items were organized in checklist form into seven categories: health and safety standards, adult‐child‐peer interactions, home/center coordination, physical space, program materials and activities, making transitions from school to day care to home, and making transitions from day care to self‐care. The 69 items, an accompanying global nine‐point rating scale, and a 13 item follow‐up checklist comprise the Day Care Checklist for Parents of School‐Age Children.