Best Private Schools on the Eastside
The Eastside's independent-school landscape looks nothing like Seattle's older private corridor across the lake. Where Seattle's elite schools sit on legacy campuses founded between the 1880s and the 1920s, the Eastside's leading private institutions are mostly products of the Microsoft-era growth that transformed Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland, and Sammamish into one of the densest concentrations of dual-income technical professional households in the country. The result is a private sector that skews young, fast-growing, and disproportionately co-ed K-12, with a notable cluster of schools founded since 1990 specifically to serve families who chose the Eastside for its public schools and then wanted private options without crossing 520.
The top of the list illustrates the pattern. Eastside Catholic in Sammamish (founded 1980, grades 6-12) is the regional Catholic anchor and one of the few large Catholic college-preps east of Lake Washington. Eastside Preparatory in Kirkland was founded by a group of parents and educators in 2002 and accredited by NWAIS in 2010, making it one of the youngest established independent schools in the state. The Overlake School in Redmond, founded by Charles Clarke in 1967, occupies a former farm and remains the senior secular K-12 independent in the region. The Bear Creek School, founded 1988 in Redmond, is a National Blue Ribbon school operating in the classical Christian tradition and is the largest classical-Christian school on the Eastside.
A distinguishing feature of this list relative to Seattle's is the strong K-12 grade-span coverage at the top — seven of the top ten serve preschool or kindergarten through twelfth grade on a single continuous track, which is unusual. Bellevue Christian (with its Three Points Elementary in Clyde Hill and Mack Campus secondary in Clyde Hill) and the King's Schools-affiliated programs reflect the established evangelical Christian network. Bellevue Children's Academy and Chestnut Hill Academy represent the rapid post-2000 growth of secular academic-enrichment private elementaries built specifically for the families that fill Bellevue and Lake Washington School District boundaries. The French American School of Puget Sound on Mercer Island, founded 1995, is the only French-immersion accredited K-8 in the state.
The Eastside private market has a thinner top tier than Seattle — the field is younger, with the senior Eastside indie (Overlake) founded in 1967 and most of the rest post-1990. The secular co-ed K-12 cohort that leads the field is Overlake (Redmond) and Eastside Preparatory (Kirkland); Open Window (Bellevue, gifted K-8 paired with Evergreen in published gifted-elementary coverage) rounds out the S-tier picture. Eastside Catholic (Sammamish, 6-12) is the archdiocesan Catholic anchor for the Eastside Catholic community — the Eastside analog to Bishop Blanchet on the Seattle side.
A-tier covers the broader cohort: The Bear Creek School (Redmond, classical-Christian K-12, National Blue Ribbon), Forest Ridge School of the Sacred Heart (Bellevue, all-girls 5-12, the only Sacred Heart Network school in the Pacific Northwest), BASIS Independent Bellevue (the AP-heavy K-12 from the national chain, opened 2017), Bellevue Christian and Bellevue Children's Academy (the larger evangelical and secular K-12 systems), Saint Thomas School in Medina (the senior Eastside indie K-8, founded 1951 with Episcopal roots and now nonsectarian), and the established parish and language-immersion K-5 / K-8 schools (Sacred Heart in Clyde Hill, French American School of Puget Sound on Mercer Island, Chestnut Hill in Bellevue, Eton). B-tier covers smaller Christian and Montessori K-12s plus the Jewish day-school pipeline (Jewish Day School of Metropolitan Seattle in Bellevue, Northwest Yeshiva High School on Mercer Island).
S Tier · 3 schools
- 001EASTSIDE PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING536 students
- 002THE OVERLAKE SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING557 students
- 003OPEN WINDOW SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING359 students
A Tier · 13 schools
- 004EASTSIDE CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING880 students
- 005THE BEAR CREEK SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING673 students
- 006BELLEVUE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING918 students
- 007BELLEVUE CHILDREN'S ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING541 students
- 008SACRED HEART SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING408 students
- 009CHESTNUT HILL ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING329 students
- 010FRENCH AMERICAN SCHOOL OF PUGET SOUND(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING312 students
- 011FOREST RIDGE SCHOOL OF THE SACRED HEART(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING245 students
- 012THREE POINTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CAMPUS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING269 students
- 013SAINT THOMAS SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING250 students
- 014BASIS INDEPENDENT BELLEVUE(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING231 students
- 015ETON SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING227 students
- 016FRENCH IMMERSION SCHOOL OF WASHINGTON(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING149 students
B Tier · 12 schools
- 017PROVIDENCE CLASSICAL CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING350 students
- 018WOODINVILLE MONTESSORI SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING312 students
- 019EASTSIDE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING239 students
- 020UNITED SEATTLE&BELLEVUE KOREAN SCH BELLEVUE CAMPUS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING345 students
- 021TZU CHI ACADEMY SEATTLE(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING282 students
- 022WILLOWS PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING271 students
- 023HOLY FAMILY PARISH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING260 students
- 024HERITAGE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING253 students
- 025ST MONICA SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING222 students
- 026ST BRENDAN'S CATHOLIC CHURCH(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING217 students
- 027JEWISH DAY SCHOOL OF METROPOLITAN SEATTLE(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING77 students
- 028NORTHWEST YESHIVA HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING57 students
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