Private schools in Sebastian, Florida

No private K-12 school has a Sebastian address in the federal 2023-24 private school survey, so Sebastian families who choose private school drive to Vero Beach or Palm Bay.

The National Center for Education Statistics keeps the federal directory of private schools, built from its Private School Universe Survey. A search of ZIP code 32958, which covers Sebastian, Roseland and the Sebastian Highlands, returns no private schools within 10 miles in the 2023-24 data. The Indian River County listing shows 10 private schools, every one with a Vero Beach address. Widening the radius to 20 miles from the Sebastian ZIP, the NCES search returns 14 schools: the 10 in Vero Beach, beginning at 10.2 miles, and four in Palm Bay in Brevard County at 16.9 miles.

The private option that does exist inside Sebastian is early education, covered further down. For school-age children, the choice in practice is a 10 to 17-mile commute south on US 1 or I-95 toward Vero Beach, or north into Brevard County, against the public campuses on County Road 512.

The private schools closest to Sebastian are a group of Vero Beach campuses about 10 miles from the 32958 ZIP code, led by Masters Academy of Vero Beach and St Helen Catholic School.

Two of the nearby schools run all the way from preschool through twelfth grade. Masters Academy of Vero Beach, at 1115 58th Ave., enrolled 300 students in grades PK through 12 in 2023-24, is affiliated with the Church of God and reported a student/teacher ratio of 10.2. St Edward's School, on Saint Edwards Drive in Vero Beach, enrolled 652 students in PK through 12, is Episcopal, and reported a ratio of 7.9, the lowest among the nearby schools with more than 200 students.

The rest stop at eighth grade or earlier. St Helen Catholic School enrolled 286 students in kindergarten through grade 8, and Glendale Christian School, a Baptist school, enrolled 270 in PK through 8. North of the county line, St Joseph Catholic School on Babcock Street in Palm Bay enrolled 235 in PK through 8. For a Sebastian family, the Palm Bay schools are 16.9 miles from the ZIP centroid, farther than the Vero Beach group but on the north side of town.

Yes: Sebastian has church-run private preschools, including St. Sebastian Academy on US 1, opened in August 2026, and Roseland Christian Preschool on Roseland Road.

St. Sebastian Catholic Church opened St. Sebastian Academy at 10860 US Hwy 1 in August 2026, Sebastian Daily reported, enrolling three- and four-year-olds. Bishop Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez said that after more than 20 years the Diocese of Palm Beach was again planting new roots in the parish with Pre-K3 and Pre-K4 classes. For four-year-olds the academy offers a five-day 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. program covered by the state's Voluntary Prekindergarten (VPK) voucher, plus longer days to noon or 2 p.m.; three-year-olds can attend two, three or five days a week.

On the north edge of the Sebastian area, Roseland Christian Preschool at 12962 Roseland Rd. marked 20 years in September 2021, according to Sebastian Daily, which described it as a faith-based, screen-free preschool. Neither preschool continues into the elementary grades, so private schooling past age five still means leaving Sebastian.

The public alternatives at the same ages are close by. Sebastian's public elementary schools take children from kindergarten, and the School District of Indian River County's Pelican Island campus on Schumann Drive began adding middle grades in August 2025 under the K-8 plan, which gives Sebastian parents a smaller-school option for grades 6 to 8 without a private tuition bill or a drive to Vero Beach.

About 270 Sebastian students in grades 1 through 12, roughly 12 percent, attend private school, according to U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2020-2024 estimates.

The American Community Survey table S1401 for the City of Sebastian counts 748 students in grades 1 to 4, of whom 108 are in private school; 731 in grades 5 to 8, with 130 in private school; and 748 in grades 9 to 12, with only 32 in private school. The private share peaks in the middle grades, at about 18 percent, and falls to about 4 percent in high school, when most Sebastian teenagers attend Sebastian River High School.

That middle-school bulge matches what the school district has said. In January 2025 Vero News reported Superintendent David Moore citing statistics that the district loses a significant number of students after fifth grade to private and charter schools, partly because some parents worry about the middle-school transition. The district's answer included converting Pelican Island Elementary in Sebastian into a K-8, described as the first in the district to offer a non-religious, classical-education curriculum.

Sebastian families can use Florida's state K-12 scholarship programs at eligible private schools, and the state VPK voucher at private preschools such as St. Sebastian Academy.

For Sebastian families, state money is the main lever. The Florida Department of Education says Florida provides a variety of school choice options, including six scholarship programs, and that these programs allow parents choice among public and private schools. The list includes the Family Empowerment Scholarship, the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship, the Hope Scholarship, New Worlds Reading Scholarship Accounts and the Opportunity Scholarship. Eligibility and award amounts are set by the state and administered through scholarship organizations, so the department's pages are the record for a given year.

NCES does not report tuition, and none of the Vero Beach or Palm Bay schools in the federal survey publish tuition through it, so cost comparisons for Sebastian families have to come from the schools themselves. What the federal data do show is scale: the nearby private schools range from 14 students at Treasure Coast Boys Academy to 652 at St Edward's, against 775 students at Sebastian River Middle School alone in 2024-2025.