Best Private Elementary Schools in Tacoma / Pierce County
Tacoma and Pierce County have no S-tier private elementary schools — the South Puget Sound private market is dominated by the two Tacoma Episcopal independents, Annie Wright Schools and Charles Wright Academy. Both are A-tier here. Both are K-12 schools whose reputations rest primarily on their upper-school programs (boarding-and-IB at Annie Wright, AP and 107-acre campus at Charles Wright). Their elementary divisions draw from the same Tacoma families and operate as feeder programs into the K-12 pipeline.
Beneath the two Wrights sits a B-tier cluster that is mostly evangelical Christian K-12 (Cascade Christian's Puyallup and McAlder Elementary campuses, Life Christian Academy, Lighthouse Christian in Gig Harbor, Tacoma Christian Academy) plus the Pierce County Catholic parish K-8s (St Charles Borromeo, St Patrick, Holy Cross, St Frances Cabrini). Eleven C-tier schools fill in the smaller religious and category-specialty programs.
The central tradeoff in Pierce County is one of category, not tier: secular families have only the two Episcopal independents and a small handful of Montessori / non-religious programs to choose from, while families seeking religious education have a deep evangelical Christian and Catholic bench. Bellarmine Preparatory in Tacoma is a major Catholic 9-12 destination but does not run an elementary division, so it doesn't appear in this list.
A Tier · 2 schools
- 001ANNIE WRIGHT SCHOOLS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE619 students
- 002CHARLES WRIGHT ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE519 students
B Tier · 12 schools
- 003LIFE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE610 students
- 004LIGHTHOUSE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE520 students
- 005ST CHARLES BORROMEO CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE426 students
- 006CASCADE CHRISTIAN - PUYALLUP ELEMENTARY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE329 students
- 007TACOMA CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE309 students
- 008CASCADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL - MCALDER ELEMENTARY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE302 students
- 009CASCADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS - FREDERICKSON ELEM.(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE275 students
- 010ST PATRICK CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE357 students
- 011SOUND CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE268 students
- 012ALL SAINTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE210 students
- 013SALVATION CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE203 students
- 014ST VINCENT DE PAUL SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING201 students
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