Cadence Education
The Firm
Cadence Education runs private preschools and elementary schools across the United States from Scottsdale, Arizona, says it has been in business more than thirty years, and grows chiefly by buying. In June 2026 it announced the acquisition of Especially for Children, nine schools across the Minneapolis and St. Paul metro, and called that the deal that took it to 350 schools in 30 states. It buys single schools as readily as groups, and it buys curricula it does not already run: Stepping Stones in Chicago, in spring 2025, and Lily Pad in winter 2024 both went into a Preparatory Schools division the company says exists to protect non-traditional programs.
The seller-facing side is unusually explicit, which is the part worth reading before bidding on a center. A Partnerships page addresses owners directly and lists what it offers: an integration team and a transition plan, a support center for the seller's employees, benefits for the staff who stay, returns on both the business and the real estate, and, in its own words, peace of mind that the school will be guided by an experienced operator that honors the history and legacy of your brand. The owners quoted on its school pages describe entrusting the school rather than selling it, which is the language a founder-run center answers to.
Read those pages against their own dates. The acquisitions page still says over 150 schools and growing while the June 2026 announcement says 350, so the copy a seller lands on trails the company by more than half its size, and anything else stated there is worth checking before relying on it. What is current is the appetite. For a searcher looking at a childcare center with real enrollment, this is a buyer with a transition playbook already written, a willingness to take the property as well as the business, and no need for the owner to stay.
What It Buys
Scottsdale, AZ. Preschools bought a group at a time from owners it courts directly on its own site, and it takes the real estate: 350 schools across 30 states after a nine-school Twin Cities deal.
Selling to them one day, or watching them as the other bidder? Track them in the Contact Book so the relationship has a next-touch date.
Confirmed Deals
1 deal traced to announcements by Cadence Education, 2026, newest first. Firms that announce every deal show a fuller run here than firms that report acquisitions as quarterly counts, so read this as the evidence that clears the bar rather than as the firm's whole record.
- Especially for Children · June 2, 2026
Nine schools across the Minneapolis and St. Paul metro, the deal the company said took it to 350 schools in 30 states.