The name Potter’s Wheel Academy was derived from the passage in Isaiah 64:8 But now, O LORD, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter, and we all are the work of thy hand. We believe that God is indeed the Potter and we are the clay to be molded by Him.

The Founders, Reed and Glenna Palmer began parent-directed education of their daughter in 1988 when she was entering fourth grade. She is currently pursuing a Masters Degree at University of Central Florida in Orlando.

Reed and Glenna co-founded their first private school in Ft. Myers, Florida, and were administrators of that school from early 1990 to 1993, when they moved to Sarasota, Florida and founded Potter’s Wheel Academy. Listed in the Florida Department of Education’s data base of Non-Public Schools as a non-denominational private school, Potter’s Wheel Academy was founded in 1994 to provide Christian and non-Christian families a private school option for use in their parent-directed education programs. Its geographic area is not limited and currently serves families in Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardee, Hillsborough, Lake, Lee, Manatee, and Sarasota counties.

Potter’s Wheel Academy is a non-traditional private school and only parent-directed schooling families are currently enrolled. Parents and/or others approved by the school are the teachers and the classrooms are wherever the learning is available and taking place, such as community colleges, vocational technical schools, Florida Virtual School, other computer based educational programs, video schools, apprenticeships, on the job training, correspondence programs, home, private tutoring, and non-profit organizations.

Reed and Glenna are both past Board Members and for twelve years Reed was Treasurer of FCCPSA (Florida Coalition of Christian Private Schools Association, Inc.), an organization that provides support to administrators of private Christian schools. Reed and Glenna have spoken at local bookstores, other private schools and support groups, and at FCCPSA sponsored local, state and regional meetings.

Our “mission statement” includes helping parents and students select courses and methods of study that fit the following minimum criteria:

• Maintain the student’s interest while meeting scholastic goals.

• Meet or exceed the minimum graduation requirements of the state.

• Assist families in acquiring scholarships or other grants in aid to further higher education.

• Allow parents and students to control the level of “political correctness” in their education strategy and to pass on the values and traditions of their family without outside interference.

• Help families make the best use of their educational dollars.

Parental Responsibility Regarding Education
We live in a nation that requires support of a secular public school system. Parents and others, whether they are Christian, Jewish, etc.,are required to support this system even if they object to the methods and curriculums being used as well as the outcome of the process.

Potter’s Wheel Academy was established espousing a broad parental obligation regarding the total education of children. We believe this obligation exists regardless of creed, race, or gender. The following reference is apropos of the development of the mission statement and our overall philosophy of education. Other scripture translations have a narrower emphasis rather than the one below which includes a more detailed description of the relationship between parents, children, the state, and the rights and obligations of each. This is indicative of our philosophy of education.

This note was referenced to Ephesians 6:1-4, in the Navarre Bible Captivity Epistles volume RSV, with comments by the Faculty of Theology, Navarre University

3. The Authors of Education

"Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role of the parents in education is so important that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs. It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor. Here, too, they find their first experience of a wholesome human society and of the Church. Finally, it is through the family that they are gradually led to a companionship with their fellowmen and with the people of God. Let parents, then, recognize the inestimable importance a truly Christian family has for the life and progress of God's own people. (Vatican II, Gravissimum educationis, 3)"

Also in the same footnote is the following:

"Therefore the responsibility and consequently also the right of educating children comes to the family direct from the Creator. It is a right which cannot be surrendered, because it is combined with a very serious responsibility; it is therefore prior to the right of the civil society or the State and for that reason may not be infringed upon by any power on earth. (Pius XI, Divini illius Magistri)..."