Bowman School

Bowman School is a Montessori school in south Palo Alto that runs year-round and serves children from 12 weeks old through high school. Its main campus is on Terman Drive, right beside Ellen Fletcher Middle School, with three more sites around the city. Classrooms mix students across two or three grades, there is no homework and families choose which of the school's 240 open days to skip.

This page covers the founding, campuses, program, admission process and 2026 to 2027 tuition as Bowman publishes them. For other schools, see our private schools guide. Bowman's site mentions rankings from commercial sites. We do not repeat those.

Founding and growth

Bowman's history page gives a clear timeline:

• 1995. A group of parents and educators, many of whom had lived abroad, open Children's International School with 13 students in kindergarten to fourth grade and two teachers, in a rented room at what is now the Cubberley Community Center.
• 1997. Grades 6 to 8 are added.
• 2000. A travel program begins, with trips over the years to Japan, Spain, England and U.S. cities.
• 2003. The school buys a permanent home down the road and renames itself Bowman International School after Margaret Bowman Ricks, its founding head and a Montessori educator.
• 2008. Margaret Bowman Ricks retires. Mary Beth Ricks, the school's first teacher, becomes head of school.
• 2010. The bee becomes the mascot.
• 2019. Bowman West opens with a Children's House, gym, theater, IDEALab and outdoor learning spaces.
• 2023. Grades 9 to 12 launch as an upper secondary Montessori program at a Page Mill Road site.
• 2025. An additional leased site opens for Children's House, adding an infant and toddler program.

The founders' goals included a self-directed academic program, a global view of citizenship, technology in the curriculum and support for the work schedules of busy families. That last aim explains the long day and the year-round calendar.

Campuses

The two main sites sit on the Arastradero corridor between El Camino Real and Foothill Expressway. Fletcher Middle School shares the Terman Drive block and Gunn High School is a short walk up Arastradero. Fletcher's own drop-off rules ask its families never to use the Bowman parking lot, which gives a sense of how busy this stretch gets at bell times.

The Montessori program

Bowman groups students by developmental stage rather than by single grade:

1. Primary or Children's House: 12 weeks to 6 years.
2. Elementary: kindergarten to grade 5.
3. Secondary: grades 6 to 12.

Teachers stay with a class for two or three years. The school says more than 75 percent of its teachers hold advanced degrees and all lead teachers hold Montessori credentials. Lessons use Montessori materials to move from concrete to abstract, especially in math. Science centers on botany and zoology in the younger years and alternates between life and physical sciences in secondary. Social studies follows a three-year cycle of continents: Asia and Africa, then Europe and Oceania, then the Americas. World languages are Mandarin, Spanish and Latin. Practical life covers cooking, woodwork, gardening and fiber arts.

In secondary, Bowman says its classes use the International Baccalaureate curriculum, aligned with California standards. Grades 9 to 12 are aligned with the University of California and California State University A to G requirements. Students do not need to come from an IB middle school to join. Bowman partners with the counseling firm IvyWise for college guidance across all four high school years.

The school has two rules taught from day one: respect others and respect things. Older students serve as peer mediators and hold school-wide community jobs. Service learning grows from classroom projects to on and off campus work by secondary.

A year-round calendar and a long day

Bowman is open 240 days a year and expects each student to attend 180. Families can travel when it suits them, which matters for parents with fixed vacation weeks or relatives abroad. The campus is open from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., with classroom instruction from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Families can drop off and pick up any time within that window. There is no homework. The school says the day is organized so independent work happens in class.

Bowman does not offer a part-time program. Everyone enrolls full time. For working parents the practical effect is that school, after care and summer care come from one place, on one bill, with one set of teachers who know the child. For families who prefer a traditional school calendar, it can feel unusual at first, since classmates may be away on different weeks. The school says individualized lessons let students pick up where they left off.

Admission

Bowman uses Ravenna for tours, applications, recommendations and records. A committee of teachers and administrators reviews each application and considers academic, social and emotional readiness. A shadow visit lets teachers observe how a child learns and interacts.

• Kindergarten to grade 12: a formal admissions season runs from September through March. After March, applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
• 12 weeks to kindergarten: rolling admission all year.
• Wait pool: when qualified applicants outnumber spaces, children may go into an unranked wait pool and the school contacts families case by case.

The school says children from traditional schools usually settle in, though some take a couple of weeks to adjust to the independence Montessori asks for. Bowman follows the Bay Area Directors of Admission principles of good practice, which set shared norms for local independent schools.

Tuition and aid for 2026 to 2027

Bowman's affordability page states that tuition for 2026 to 2027 is $48,825. That figure covers the full 12-month program and the 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. day. All supplies and materials are included, as are local field trips and an annual camping trip. The page gives a single figure without breaking it out by age level, so ask the admissions office whether infant and toddler care is priced differently. Tuition for 2027 to 2028 had not been posted in late October 2026.

Bowman offers a limited, need-based tuition assistance fund, assessed through School and Student Services. On average families receive $5,000 to $8,000 and about 19 percent of students get some help. Because the day runs to 6 p.m. year-round, families comparing costs should weigh what they would otherwise pay for after-school care and summer camps.

Visiting

Tours and open houses are booked through Ravenna. Out-of-town families visiting the Terman Drive or Page Mill campuses will find hotels along El Camino Real a few minutes away. You can compare hotels in south Palo Alto or read about staying near Stanford. For care before kindergarten at other providers, see our preschools and childcare guide.

Frequently asked questions