The Evergreen School is an independent preschool-through-grade-8 day school on a four-and-a-half-acre Shoreline campus, designed since its 1963 founding for highly capable and gifted learners. Edith Christensen opened the school as 'The Evergreen School for Gifted Children' with six students; it now enrolls roughly 520 with class sizes of 16-18 and a 7:1 student-to-teacher ratio.
The direct peer is Open Window School (Bellevue, on Cougar Mountain), the other independent K-8 in the region serving formally identified gifted students; the two are paired in nearly all regional gifted-education listings. Evergreen is the larger and older of the two and the only Seattle-area gifted school explicitly serving preschool. Among broader independent K-8 options it's grouped with Bertschi (Capitol Hill, K-5) and Spruce Street School (downtown Seattle), but distinguished by its gifted-only admissions track.
The campus blends academic facilities with restored Pacific Northwest habitat — cedar groves, wetlands along Meridian Creek, a maker space called the BIG Lab, a full theater and gym. World languages are introduced in kindergarten across French, Spanish, and Mandarin, with students choosing one to pursue from first grade onward; the eighth-grade year culminates in a yearlong country study and a month-long Global Studies trip. Evergreen is accredited by the Northwest Association of Independent Schools and is a NAIS member; in 1967 it became the first North American school to establish a certified WWF habitat.
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