Disclaimers and qualifiers first. Every child is different and every family is different in their educational needs and priorities and every child learns differently. One school may be the perfect place for one child and not ideal for another. So our experience has been pretty widespread.
Lets start with safety. You can always find state inspections on the state website for licensed child-care facilities. These inspections will tell you a lot of useless things but will also provide light on some useful things such as if there is a valid fire safety plan and are all of the teacher background checked and fingerprinted. Keep in mind that every facility will have a few citations. This is how the state makes money. The other safety feature I liked about this school is that there is only one entrance/exit door and that is through the front. So the likelihood of a run-away child is nearly impossible.