1
Montessori By The Sea
St. Pete Beach·Pinellas County·Grades PK-06·~101 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordable
Tuition$11.8K/yr
TypePrivate
Students~101
ST. PETERSBURG
Best Independent (non-religious) Private Pre-K Schools in St. Petersburg
Independent rankings of Independent (non-religious) Private Pre-K schools in St. Petersburg, built from director interviews and verified data — never from school payments.
25 schools indexed0 director-verifiedUpdated this week
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AdmitCompass tracks 25 private pre-k-level schools in St. Petersburg. Median published tuition is $15.9K/yr. St. Petersburg has the highest concentration with 12 schools, followed by St Petersburg (8). 12 of these schools accept Florida Step Up / FES scholarships — roughly 48% of the list — so families using state-funded scholarships have real choice here.
Private schools on this page set their own admissions criteria. Most ask for a school visit, prior records, and a family interview; competitive K and 6th-grade entry points often fill 6-9 months before the start of school. Every school is re-verified through direct outreach to admissions teams; data is refreshed on a 180-day cadence and timestamped on each profile.
Showing 10 of 25 St. Petersburg schools
- 2The French American School Of Tampa Bay
St Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades PK-06·~82 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edAffordableTuition$20.0K/yrTypePrivateStudents~82 - 3Infinite Potential Learning Academy
St. Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades PK-05·~100 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edTuitionFreeTypePrivateStudents~100 - 4Edgewater Preparatory Academy
St. Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades PK-12·~77 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edTuitionFreeTypePrivateStudents~77 - 5Vallenari's Integrative Learning
St Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades PK-12·~326 students
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePrivateStudents~326 - 6Pax Academy
St. Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades PK-12·~55 students
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePrivateStudents~55 - 7Alfred Adler School
St Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades KG-09·~48 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edTuitionFreeTypePrivateStudents~48 - 8New System School Inc. Florida Office
St. Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades KG-12·~41 students
Co-edTuitionFreeTypePrivateStudents~41 - 9Sunflower School Inc
Gulfport·Pinellas County·Grades KG-05·~36 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edTuitionFreeTypePrivateStudents~36 - 10Community Christian School Of Five Oaks
Saint Petersburg·Pinellas County·Grades KG-12·~27 students
Accepts scholarshipsCo-edTuitionFreeTypePrivateStudents~27
How we rank these schools
Built relationships, not scrapers. AdmitCompass ranks schools using a composite score that blends four signals: enrollment size (a proxy for stability and program breadth), tuition reasonableness within the local market, freshness of our most recent verification, and a small bonus for schools with full admissions detail published on their profile.
Public data comes from the Florida Department of Education (FLDOE), the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), and each school's own admissions pages. The information that actually matters to most families — acceptance rates, deadlines, what a director cares about — comes from direct interviews with school directors and admissions coaches across our active markets.
We do not publish scoring weights or per-axis thresholds. That keeps the moat intact: the rankings reflect actual conversations with people inside schools, not a formula anyone with a crawler could clone. Every profile is re-verified on a 180-day cadence, and the "last updated" date is timestamped on every school page.
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Frequently asked questions
How competitive is admission to private schools in St. Petersburg?
Selective private schools review transcripts, teacher recommendations, an admissions test (ISEE or SSAT for grades 5-12), and an in-person visit. Acceptance rates vary widely — some schools accept nearly every qualified applicant, while top-tier programs admit fewer than 25%. Apply 9-12 months ahead of the start date.
Do these schools accept Step Up / FES scholarships?
12 of the 25 schools on this page accept Florida's Step Up For Students / FES-EO / FES-UA scholarships. That covers most or all of tuition for income-eligible families. Each school's detail page lists the specific scholarship programs accepted.
What's the smallest and largest school on this list?
Higher Learning Christian Academy Inc is the smallest with 6 students; Vallenari's Integrative Learning is the largest at 326. Smaller schools tend to offer more direct teacher contact and tighter community; larger schools usually have more elective and extracurricular breadth.
Is this list updated?
Yes. We re-verify school data on a 180-day cadence through direct contact with admissions teams, plus cross-checks against FLDOE, NCES, and published school sources. Each school profile shows the date of its most recent verification.
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