Best Private Schools in Snohomish County
Snohomish County's private-school sector is dominated by two large Christian K-12 systems and one mid-size Catholic high school, with a long tail of parish elementaries running from Lynnwood up through Marysville. The character of the field is institutionally older than the Eastside's — most leading schools trace to early-twentieth-century evangelical and Catholic congregations from the county's logging and dairy economies, rather than to the post-1990 founding wave that built the Eastside indies. Enrollment is heavily concentrated in the south county along the I-5 / I-405 commuter corridor.
Northshore Christian Academy in Everett, founded in 1995 by Northshore Christian Church, is the largest private school in the county at roughly 880 students K-8. The school grew out of a church-basement program in the late 1990s and now occupies a purpose-built Everett campus. Archbishop Murphy High School in Everett, founded as Holy Cross High School in 1988 and renamed in 1999 for Thomas J. Murphy, the late archbishop of Seattle, is the only Catholic high school north of King County. It serves roughly 450 students from across Snohomish, north King, Skagit, and Island Counties and anchors the regional WIAA athletic schedule for Catholic-school football and basketball.
Grace Academy in Marysville and Academy Northwest in Woodinville represent the established evangelical K-12 segment outside the Northshore orbit. The Catholic parish-school network across the county is unusually dense for the population: St. Mary Magdalen in Everett, Holy Rosary in Edmonds, and St. Thomas More Parish School in Lynnwood operate mid-size K-8 programs, with St. Pius X in Mountlake Terrace and Immaculate Conception in Everett rounding out the elementary network. Holy Rosary in Edmonds is one of the older parish schools in the Archdiocese of Seattle and serves the same waterfront-Edmonds families that have populated the parish for decades.
Eight of the top ten schools in the county sit in Bothell, Edmonds, Everett, Lynnwood, or Mountlake Terrace. Only Grace Academy (Marysville) and Monroe Christian sit meaningfully outside the I-5 / I-405 commuter corridor. North-county and east-county private options are thin — families in Stanwood, Arlington, Snohomish, and Sultan often have no private option closer than fifteen to twenty miles.
Ranked schools
- 001NORTHSHORE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 002ARCHBISHOP MURPHY HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 003GRACE ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 004ACADEMY NORTHWEST(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 005ST MARY MAGDALEN(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 006BRIGHTON SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 007HOLY ROSARY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 008ZION LUTHERAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 009MONROE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 010ST THOMAS MORE PARISH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 011IMMACULATE CONCEPTION / OLPH(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 012CEDAR PARK CHRISTIAN SCHOOL-LYNNWOOD CAMPUS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 013SOUNDVIEW SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 014ST MICHAEL CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 015ARLINGTON CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 016MONTESSORI SCHOOLS OF SNOHOMISH COUNTY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 017SOLOMON INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 018MONROE MONTESSORI SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 019EVERETT CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 020UCIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 021FOREST PARK ADVENTIST CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 022CYPRESS ADVENTIST SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 023SKY VALLEY ADVENTIST SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 024WASHINGTON PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
- 025KARDIA CLASSICAL SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · SNOHOMISH—
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