Montessori Preschool for Highland Beach Families
Highland Beach is a town of a few thousand people on three miles of barrier island. It has a library, a town hall, and one of the quietest stretches of A1A in South Florida. What it does not have is a preschool. Families here look inland, and for twenty-six years a steady number of them have looked to Royal Palm Montessori Academy.
The drive is easier than the map suggests
From anywhere along Ocean Boulevard — Bel Lido Isle, Boca Highland Beach Club, Toscana, the Ambassador — you cross west at either Linton Boulevard or Spanish River Boulevard, pick up Military Trail or Lyons Road, and continue to our Cobblestone Way campus. It is a real drive, and we will not pretend otherwise. But Highland Beach parents already make that drive for groceries, medical appointments, and elementary school. Families who choose us decide it is worth doing for the preschool years too, and our 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM schedule is built to absorb a commute on both ends.
Why small-town families fit here
Highland Beach parents tend to want the same thing they get from their town: to be known. Not processed through a system. Our classrooms have small student-to-teacher ratios and large physical footprints, and our staff turnover is close to nonexistent — several of our Montessori-certified teachers have been here since the school opened in February 2000. Your child's teacher in September will be your child's teacher in May, and probably your second child's teacher three years later.
That continuity is hard to find. It is also the thing parents mention most often when they refer us to a neighbor.
Credentials, plainly stated
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Apple Accreditation through FACCM
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Licensed by the Florida Department of Children and Families, license #50-51-00898
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Montessori-certified teaching staff, led by an owner/director with a BA from Harvard University, a master's from Nova Southeastern University, and Montessori certification, who has run the school since 1999
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26 years at one address, under one family
What Montessori looks like in practice
If you have never seen a Montessori classroom, here is the short version. The room is arranged into five areas, each with materials on open shelves at a child's height. A child selects a work, carries it to a mat or table, uses it, and returns it. Teachers give individual and small-group lessons rather than lecturing the room.
The five areas are Practical Life (pouring, buttoning, sweeping, food preparation — the foundation for concentration and hand control), Sensorial (materials that isolate color, weight, texture, sound, or size), Language (letter sounds, handwriting preparation, vocabulary, reading), Mathematics (concrete quantities before written numerals), and Science and Social Studies (botany, geography, and hands-on work in our school garden).
Around that core, students get Spanish three times a week, art twice a week, weekly computer lab, physical education, and a moral character program covering kindness, responsibility, and citizenship. Soccer, Kenpo Karate, and dance are available as extracurriculars.
We are glad to walk you through all of this on a tour. Most parents new to Montessori have questions, and the classroom is a far better place to answer them than a website is.
VPK and enrollment
We participate in Florida's Voluntary Prekindergarten program, and Highland Beach residents — as Palm Beach County families — are eligible to use their VPK Certificate of Eligibility here. We also work with families using Step Up For Students scholarships. Call us for specifics.
Because Highland Beach children generally continue on to Boca Raton elementary schools, kindergarten readiness is where our program pays off most visibly. Our graduates arrive able to read, handle early math with real number sense, and — more importantly — able to concentrate on a task and finish it independently.
Book a tour
Come see a classroom during a working period. Call (561) 483-3838 or email royalpalmmontessori@gmail.com to schedule, Monday through Friday.
Royal Palm Montessori Academy · 12532 Cobblestone Way, Boca Raton, FL 33428 · (561) 483-3838 · Monday–Friday, 8:00 AM–6:00 PM
FAQs
No. Highland Beach has no preschools within town limits, so families travel west into Boca Raton. Royal Palm Montessori Academy is reachable via Linton Boulevard or Spanish River Boulevard to Military Trail or Lyons Road.
Yes. We are open Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM, which gives Highland Beach families flexibility on both ends of the day.
We maintain small student-to-teacher ratios in unusually large classrooms — both are requirements of a properly run Montessori environment, not add-ons.
Yes. Highland Beach is in Palm Beach County, and Florida's VPK program allows families to use their Certificate of Eligibility at participating providers. We will help you with the process.
Not at all. Most families touring for the first time are new to it. We spend a good portion of every tour explaining exactly how the classroom works and why.