Perseverance Pays Off for Key’s Newest Preschool Owners

Tricycle track at new pre-school makes good use of limited outdoor space. (Annali Hayward/Key News)

A passion for early childhood education spurred three women to launch a unique preschool on Key Biscayne. Estrellitas del Mar will hold its grand opening in February — but it has been a long road for these entrepreneurs.

A labor of love has brought Key Biscayne’s newest preschool to fruition. After six years of location hunting, form-filling and setbacks, a dedicated trio of women is set to realize a dream.

The result? The Key’s only secular preschool and its first program for infants.

“I have always known educating youth was my true calling,” says Anna Corley, a veteran early childhood educator and one of the founders. 

Ann Chu agrees, recalling that even as high school students, these old friends both loved children. Two became three when islander Nicole Marley joined the team.

The school will be one of a handful of choices for Key Biscayne parents, with two notable differences: the choice to be secular and the introduction of an infant program, starting from 3 months. 

“We value the importance of the growth and development that happen between zero to 3 years old,” says Corley. “There was nowhere on the island for this age group — yet there was a need, according to parents.”

Although Marley is the only one who currently lives on Key Biscayne, Corley and Chu are looking — and their love for the neighborhood is apparent. 

Corley has a long history with the island, spending vacations at her family’s house while living in Central America. Two full-time stints came later, first as a University of Miami student and then later in 2011. 

“I love how Key Biscayne is continuously evolving and yet staying a tight-knit community,” she says. “It’s one of the last safe places where children can still be children.”

Estrellitas del Mar founders Anna Corley, Ann Chu and Nicole Marley. (Annali Hayward/Key News)

Chu says she and Corley had been actively looking for the right spot on the island since 2013. They were nearly successful with another commercial property, but that fell through due to issues with guaranteeing outdoor access. Another potential site inside a local condominium complex failed to materialize.

Undeterred, the team kept looking until one day a piece of good news landed on their desks. The previous business on the eventual site of Estrellitas del Mar was closing. 

“We came down here straight away,” says Chu.

That business was Magic of Learning, a preschool that closed its doors in May 2019, blaming high rents and low enrollment. It was the only other preschool apart from the Key Biscayne K-8 Center to offer the federally-funded Voluntary Pre-Kindergarten program, which reduces fees for parents. Corley says they are waiting for final approval to offer the program.

While the school was unable to alter the total footprint of the space, it has “creatively reconfigured it to allow more usable space,” including the addition of a tricycle track and a kid-sized gardening area. Students will often be outside for classes depending on the subject and the weather. 

The school not only focuses on academics but also on the holistic development of the child. A play-based approach deliberately involves parents in all-round development, emphasizing socio-emotional skills as well as ABCs. It employs a research-based framework called Conscious Discipline.

“I have taught kindergarten and had experience with children from classes that focused on school readiness and those that did not,” says Corley of the program. “The difference is clear.”

Chu says the methodology was popular with parents at their previous site, a successful nursery and preschool in Reston, VA. outside of Washington, D.C.

The trio is not naive about the challenges they are facing on Key Biscayne. They are ramping up enrollment from scratch with space for over 80 children. Marley may step up here. With a background in marketing and an MBA from Emory University, she has spent several of her nine years here in the K-8 Center’s PTA. 

Chu says that given the smaller student-to-teacher ratios, she hopes parents feel their pricing is fair compared to other preschools on the Key. The religious affiliations of many of those centers may also allow them to avoid steep commercial rents.

But she is careful not to draw comparisons: “We all offer something different.”