Private Schools in Melbourne — Melbourne, Florida

Melbourne's best documented private schools grew out of local churches and a single burst of school building around 1961. Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy, which began in 1957 as a parish day school, 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 elementary and middle school on North Harbor City Boulevard, opened that same year. Florida Preparatory Academy, known for most of its life as Florida Air Academy, also traces its existence in Melbourne to 1961.

These institutions sit outside Brevard Public Schools and set their own admissions and calendars. Their religious affiliations differ: Holy Trinity follows the Episcopal tradition, while Melbourne Central Catholic and Ascension are Catholic schools of the Diocese of Orlando. This page describes each school's documented history and campus as reported by the schools themselves and by the Florida Tech archives. It does not list tuition, which each school publishes and changes on its own schedule.

The academy's own history says Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy was established in 1957 as Holy Trinity Parish Day School and has occupied the school grounds at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Melbourne 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 near Downtown Melbourne on Peachtree Street, on five acres that also hold Holy Trinity Episcopal Church and the historic chapel, and the Upper School off the Pineda Causeway in North Melbourne on 55 acres. Upper School facilities named there include the Shah Family Athletic Center at Kelly Stadium and an 800-seat auditorium, the Scott Center for Worship and the Performing Arts.

On the Melbourne campuses, 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.

Melbourne Central Catholic, known locally as MCC, started as a plan by three local pastors for a community that had no Catholic high school. The MCC history page credits their efforts, with the patronage of Archbishop Joseph P. Hurley of St. Augustine, for breaking ground in 1961 on Brevard County's first Catholic high school, on 41 acres on East Florida Avenue in Melbourne. While the buildings went up, students attended classes in rented barracks shared with Brevard Engineering College, the school that became Florida Tech, across from the Melbourne Airport.

The Melbourne faculty took shape in 1962, when four Franciscan Sisters of Allegany, New York, joined the school, and the Reverend Peter Dolan, one of the three founding pastors, became its first president and principal. The sophomore class entered the new campus in January 1963. The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools 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.

Today the Melbourne school's Discover MCC page describes a 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. The school's nickname, the Hustlers, is traced by MCC to Father Dolan's admiration for a University of Maryland offensive unit of 1962.

Ascension Catholic School is the parish school of Ascension Catholic Church on North Harbor City Boulevard in Melbourne, serving grades PK3 through 8. Its About Us page records that it welcomed its first students on September 1, 1961, after three Sisters of Mercy from Ireland, Sister Monica Ryan, Sister Assumpta Finn and Sister Immaculata Knox, arrived three days before opening six classes, kindergarten through grade 5, for 334 students. 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 on the same Harbor City Boulevard site. Five portable classrooms 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. A second phase of construction was finished in December 1997. The United States Department of Education recognized Ascension as a National School of Excellence in 1986, and the school is accredited by the Florida Catholic Conference. Melbourne Central Catholic lists Ascension among the Brevard Catholic elementary schools linked from its site, alongside Holy Name of Jesus, St. Joseph, St. Mary, St. Teresa and two other parish schools, the network that feeds students to the Catholic high school on East Florida Avenue in Melbourne.

Florida Preparatory Academy is the newest name for one of Melbourne's oldest private secondary schools. The Florida Tech 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.

The academy shows up in Florida Tech's College of Aeronautics records, a reminder of how closely Melbourne's private schools and its aviation and engineering institutions grew together after 1958. Public information on the academy's current programs is thin: its own website returned no readable content when checked in October 2026, so this page does not describe its present enrollment or curriculum.