Private Schools in Melbourne

Melbourne's best documented private schools are Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy, Melbourne Central Catholic High School and Ascension Catholic School, three church schools founded in Melbourne between 1957 and 1961.

Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy began in 1957 as a parish day school and now runs from preschool through grade 12 on two Melbourne campuses. Melbourne Central Catholic High School on East Florida Avenue broke ground in 1961 as the first Catholic high school in Brevard County. Ascension Catholic School, a parish school on North Harbor City Boulevard in Melbourne, opened that same year. Florida Tech's archives also hold a record for Florida Preparatory Academy, known as Florida Air Academy from 1961 to 2015. The table gathers what each Melbourne school states about itself today.

State oversight of Melbourne private schools is limited. The Florida Department of Education's K-12 private schools page states that private elementary and secondary schools in Florida are not licensed, approved, accredited or regulated by the department, and that each is required by statute to complete an annual online survey for the statewide Directory of Private Schools. The same page quotes the definition of a private school in Section 1002.01(2), Florida Statutes. Accreditation therefore comes from private bodies, which each Melbourne school names itself.

The 2026 text of Section 1002.42, Florida Statutes sets the few rules that do apply to Melbourne private schools: the department keeps an annually updated database of private schools, and each school files a database survey form every year. The statute also requires each private school to keep attendance records under s. 1003.23(2), to require certification of a school-entry health examination and of immunization, and it provides that attendance at a private, parochial, religious or denominational school satisfies Florida's compulsory attendance requirements.

Religious ties differ among the Melbourne schools: Holy Trinity is an Episcopal school, while Melbourne Central Catholic and Ascension are Catholic schools. This page draws only on each school's own pages, the Florida Tech archives, the Department of Education and the Florida Statutes, and it does not list tuition; Ascension's Melbourne site, for one, links its own Tuition and Fees page.

Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy was established in 1957 as Holy Trinity Parish Day School on the grounds of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Melbourne, according to the academy's own history.

The academy has occupied those Melbourne school grounds ever since. It opened with six classrooms, an office and 90 students. The founding rector, the Reverend Alex Boyer, wanted a community school stressing basic subjects, small classes and spiritual guidance.

The school split into two campuses in 2000. That year it added an Upper School for grades 7 through 12 on a 40 acre Pineda Campus, and the original Parish Campus became the Lower School for preschool through grade 6. The first Upper School seniors graduated in 2003. The Holy Trinity visit page now places the Lower School at 1720 Peachtree St., Melbourne, near Downtown Melbourne, on five acres that also hold Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and the historic chapel, and the Upper School at 5625 Holy Trinity Dr., off the Pineda Causeway in North Melbourne. The two school pages do not agree on the Upper School's size: the history gives 40 acres for the campus opened in 2000, and the visit page gives 55 acres today. Upper School facilities named on the visit page include the Shah Family Athletic Center at Kelly Stadium and an 800 seat auditorium, the Scott Center for Worship and the Performing Arts.

Visits to both Melbourne campuses are by appointment only, and the visit page lists the admissions phone as 321-723-8323. The academy's mission page states that a group of 9th grade students created its honor code in 1999, and that the code is signed every year by students in grades 4 through 12. The page lists accreditation by the Florida Council of Independent Schools and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and membership in the National Association of Episcopal Schools and the Central Florida Episcopal Schools Association.

Melbourne Central Catholic broke ground in 1961 on 41 acres on East Florida Avenue in Melbourne as Brevard County's first Catholic high school, according to the MCC history page.

The school, which calls itself MCC, started as the dream of three local pastors in a community that had no Catholic high school. The history credits their efforts, with the patronage of Archbishop Joseph P. Hurley of St. Augustine, for the 1961 groundbreaking. While the buildings went up, students attended classes in rented barracks shared with Brevard Engineering College across from the Melbourne Airport.

In 1962 four Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, New York, joined the faculty, and the Reverend Peter Dolan, one of the three founding pastors, became the school's first president and principal. In January 1963 the sophomore class entered the new campus for the first time. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools fully accredited the first graduating class in 1965, and in 1968 MCC became part of the newly formed Diocese of Orlando under Bishop William Borders. The last of the Sisters of Allegany left the school in 1989, and in 1990 MCC received the U.S. Department of Education Blue Ribbon School of Excellence recognition. The same history page gives the school's address as 154 East Florida Avenue, Melbourne, and its phone as 321.727.0793.

Today the Discover MCC page describes a fully accredited, four year college preparatory school on a 40 acre campus with eight buildings, athletic fields, a field house, a gymnasium, a chapel and a media and technology center, with approximately 460 students and a teaching staff of 33. MCC's history calls the origin of its Hustlers nickname a legend: Father Dolan, a University of Maryland football fan, is said to have borrowed the name of the offensive specialists under Coach Tom Nugent in 1962.

Ascension Catholic School, founded by the Sisters of Mercy, serves PK3 through grade 8 at 3000 North Harbor City Blvd. in Melbourne, according to its About Us page.

The school's Melbourne phone is 321 254 1595. The page records that it welcomed its first students on September 1, 1961, after Sister Monica Ryan, Sister Assumpta Finn and Sister Immaculata Knox arrived from Ireland three days before opening six classes, kindergarten through grade 5, for 334 students. Sister Monica was the first principal. Grades 6, 7 and 8 were added over the next three years, and the first 8th grade graduation was held in 1965.

The Melbourne school grew in stages. Five portable classrooms, now the Activities Building, were added in 1963, a new wing in 1983, and a new 16 classroom building in 1993-94, dedicated by Bishop Norbert M. Dorsey of Orlando, when 426 students were enrolled. Phase II of the building expansion was finished in December 1997, and the facilities now hold 23 classrooms, science and computer labs, art and music rooms, a media center and a cafetorium. The United States Department of Education recognized Ascension as a National School of Excellence in 1986.

Ascension in Melbourne is accredited by the Florida Catholic Conference, but its About Us page gives two dates for the first accreditation: the history says February 1973, and the accreditation section says 1971. That section also names 2013 as the most recent renewal, with renewals every seven years, so the page's accreditation details appear not to have been updated since. Melbourne Central Catholic's site links Ascension in its quick links alongside six other Catholic schools, among them Holy Name of Jesus, St. Joseph, St. Mary and St. Teresa.

Florida Air Academy is the former name of Florida Preparatory Academy, according to the Florida Tech archives.

The archives record the institution's existence from 1961 to the present, with the name Florida Air Academy in use from 1961 to 2015 and Florida Preparatory Academy from 2015 on. The same archival record describes the Florida Air Academy as a private secondary school that offered an education preparing students for military academies, and files it among the records of the College of Aeronautics at Florida Tech in Melbourne, a program the archive says began as the Aerospace Technical Institute, an affiliate of Florida Institute of Technology.

Current details for the academy's Melbourne area campus are not confirmed here. The academy's own website answered with a bot check on October 18, 2026, and the archival record gives no address, so this page does not describe its campus, enrollment or curriculum. The Department of Education's Directory of Private Schools, filled from each school's annual survey, is the state listing to consult.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, by rereading three Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy pages, the MCC history and Discover MCC pages, Ascension Catholic School's About Us page, the Florida Tech archives record, the Florida Department of Education's K-12 private schools page and Section 1002.42 of the Florida Statutes.