Best Private Schools in Tacoma / Pierce County
Tacoma is unusual among mid-size American cities in having three large established NWAIS- or NAIS-affiliated college-preparatory schools within a few miles of one another, plus a Lasallian-tradition Catholic anchor. The combination gives Pierce County a deeper private-school bench than its population alone would predict. The late-nineteenth-century rail and lumber wealth that built Tacoma's Stadium District — Tacoma was the original western terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway — also funded Annie Wright Seminary (1884) and, decades later, Charles Wright Academy (1957).
Bellarmine Preparatory School, founded in 1928 by the Society of Jesus on what was then a remote hilltop overlooking Tacoma, is the largest Catholic high school in the South Sound at roughly 980 students. Bellarmine became the first Jesuit school in the United States to go co-ed in 1974 when St. Leo High School and Aquinas Academy merged into it. The school today offers 41 AP, honors, and dual-credit courses, runs a four-year marine-chemistry research track, and operates the long-running BellarMUN Model UN program that draws teams from across the region. WIAA history records Bellarmine as the most-decorated school in the state across all classifications since 1973.
Annie Wright Schools is one of fewer than 20 IB Continuum schools in the United States, running PYP, MYP, and DP across the full grade span — the only IB Continuum school in Washington. Annie Wright also operates a coordinate single-sex upper-school model with separate Upper School for Girls and Upper School for Boys, plus boarding programs for both. Charles Wright Academy, founded in 1957 by Sam and Nathalie Brown with support from Episcopal Bishop Stephen Bayne, was originally a boys' day school built to serve students displaced from Annie Wright after the 1949 Tacoma earthquake; it went co-ed in 1970 and now occupies a 107-acre campus near University Place.
Beyond the secular anchors, the Catholic parish K-8 network across Pierce County is among the strongest in the state. St. Charles Borromeo and St. Patrick in Tacoma anchor the parish-school cohort, and Cascade Christian Schools — founded 1992 from a merger of three Pierce County church schools led by Don Johnson — operates a multi-campus PreK-12 system serving roughly 1,700 students. Lighthouse Christian School in Gig Harbor and Life Christian Academy in Tacoma round out the larger evangelical K-12 options.
Ranked schools
- 001BELLARMINE PREPARATORY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE2 HPM
- 002ANNIE WRIGHT SCHOOLS(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE1 HPM
- 003CHARLES WRIGHT ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE1 HPM
- 004LIFE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 005LIGHTHOUSE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 006CASCADE CHRISTIAN -JUNIOR HIGH/HIGH SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 007ST CHARLES BORROMEO CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 008ST PATRICK CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 009CASCADE CHRISTIAN - PUYALLUP ELEMENTARY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 010TACOMA CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 011CASCADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL - MCALDER ELEMENTARY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 012CASCADE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS - FREDERICKSON ELEM.(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 013SOUND CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 014ALL SAINTS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 015SALVATION CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 016ST VINCENT DE PAUL SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 017CONCORDIA CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 018CONCORDIA CHRISTIAN ACADEMY(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 019HERITAGE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 020ST FRANCES CABRINI SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 021HOLY TRINITY LUTHERAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 022NORTHWEST CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 023HOLY FAMILY CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
- 024ST NICHOLAS CATHOLIC SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · PIERCE—
- 025VALLEY CHRISTIAN SCHOOL(PRIVATE SCHOOL — INDEPENDENT) · KING—
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