Palmer was founded in 1939 by William and Elizabeth Palmer on the present Walnut Creek Campus. Their hope was to offer a challenging educational atmosphere for their daughters and other young girls in the area. A girl’s boarding school began and grew through the 1940’s as more families became aware of the school and summer program.

The 1950’s saw many changes in the surrounding neighborhoods which allowed Palmer to grow into a co-educational day school. It was at this time that the Palmer’s youngest daughter Joan, and her husband Adrian Mendes, returned from college and joined the Palmer faculty.

Over the next four decades the school grew with the building of new classrooms, auditorium, library, office and swimming pool. This was a great benefit to the growing population of students.

During the 1980’s, the Mendes’ sons, Sam and Lance joined the school which brought the third generation to continue the Palmer Tradition.

As Palmer enters its seventh decade it continues to offer an exceptional educational experience as the Founders had originally hoped.