Private Preschools Palm Beach, The King’s Academy Leads The Way

The King's Academy, one of the leading private schools in Palm Beach, is expanding its creative recruiting strategy for new students in Greenacres.

"They are getting into the preschool business setting up feeder schools. The idea is to get them young and get them in the neighborhood," said Greenacres Planning and Engineering Director Tom Lanahan.

The Greenacres City Council unanimously approved land-use changes allowing the academy to open a new preschool at the West Pines Baptist Church at 4906 Melaleuca Lane at the intersection with Haverhill Road. This will be the second preschool for the academy in Greenacres.

The King's Academy runs a school at 8401 Belvedere Road for children between kindergarten and 12th grade. But Randall Martin, the academy's chief financial officer, said the school decided last year to get into the preschool business as well for children ages 2 and 3.

The business model for the academy is simple, he said. Originally they wanted to build their own preschool at the main campus. Then they realized that parents of young children want to be able to drop their kids off closer to home. So they are partnering with local churches and running preschools during the week in the classrooms the churches normally use for Sunday school classes.

"It is a cheaper way to get into doing preschools," Martin said.

The academy isn't paying rent to the churches, but does make donations to the churches it partners with, Martin said. The arrangement is also beneficial for the churches because it gets parents who might not be congregation members onto the church campus to pick up their kids and increases the chances of that family attending that church.

Greenacres City Councilman Chuck Shaw, himself a school principal, said the idea of setting up feeder preschools for the academy's main campus is an "interesting marketing idea" and he hopes it works.

"There is always a need for more day care in the area," he said.