Private schools in Palo Alto and nearby

Palo Alto has an unusually wide range of private schools for a city of its size, plus several large ones just over the city line in Atherton, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. Families choose them for a particular philosophy, a religious tradition, a language program, a single-sex setting or simply a schedule that fits. This page lists established schools we confirmed through their own websites and describes them neutrally. We do not rank schools or compare outcomes.

Our schools hub introduces a few of these schools. This page adds more of them, explains how private schooling works in California and walks through the admissions calendar. Most Palo Alto students attend the public district, which our PAUSD guide covers in detail.

How private schools work in California

California does not license private K to 12 schools the way it licenses child care centers. Private schools file an annual affidavit with the California Department of Education, which publishes the resulting data. Many schools also seek voluntary accreditation from regional or independent school associations. Ask each school about its accreditation and about how it handles health, safety and teacher credentials.

A few terms you will hear often:

• Independent school. A nonprofit governed by its own board rather than by a church or diocese.
• Parochial or diocesan school. A school run by a church, such as the Catholic Diocese of San Jose.
• Day school. Students live at home. The schools on this page are day schools.
• Montessori and International Baccalaureate. Educational frameworks that some schools follow throughout or in certain grades.

Schools in Palo Alto

Castilleja School

Castilleja describes itself as an independent all-girls middle and high school. It was founded in 1907 by Mary Ishbel Lockey and sits on Bryant Street at the edge of Professorville. In 2022 the City Council approved a permit for the school to modernize its campus and gradually increase enrollment. Its website has a section on the modernization project with current status.

Keys School

Keys School is a K to 8 school with two Palo Alto campuses. The lower school is at 2890 Middlefield Road in midtown and the middle school is at 3981 El Camino Real.

Bowman School

Bowman runs a year-round Montessori program from infancy through high school. Classrooms mix three age levels. Its secondary program for grades 6 to 12 uses the International Baccalaureate framework. The school operates four campuses in Palo Alto.

Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School

Hausner is a Jewish day school at 450 San Antonio Road serving preschool and transitional kindergarten through eighth grade. The school says it serves about 350 students a year. Its profile in the California Association of Independent Schools directory listed an enrollment of 376.

The Kehillah School

The Kehillah School, formerly Kehillah Jewish High School, has used its current name since September 2024. It sits at 3900 Fabian Way near the Oshman Family Jewish Community Center and offers a four-year high school program, with about 180 students in 2025 to 2026. The school says it was originally founded as a Jewish day school and is culturally Jewish by design. It also says students do not need to be Jewish to belong fully.

St. Elizabeth Seton School

St. Elizabeth Seton is a Catholic school of the Diocese of San Jose at 1095 Channing Avenue, running from preschool (age 3) through grade 8. The Daughters of Charity have co-sponsored it since 2000. The school has served children there since 1978. Its building dates to 1951, when it housed St. Thomas Aquinas School.

Silicon Valley International School

Silicon Valley International School, formerly the International School of the Peninsula, offers bilingual programs that pair English with Mandarin, French or German. It runs from preschool through grade 12. The main Cohn campus is at 151 Laura Lane. A second Palo Alto campus is on Clarke Avenue and another, the Willows campus, is on Pope Street in Menlo Park. Its website is now siliconvalleyinternational.org and the old istp.org address redirects there.

Schools just outside Palo Alto

Many Palo Alto families also look at schools a few minutes away.

• Menlo School, 50 Valparaiso Avenue, Atherton. A coeducational school for grades 6 to 12 with a middle school and an upper school. It has operated since 1915.
• Sacred Heart Schools, Atherton, 150 Valparaiso Avenue. A Catholic, independent, coeducational day school for preschool through grade 12, founded by the Society of the Sacred Heart and part of the Network of Sacred Heart Schools. It includes Sacred Heart Preparatory for high school.
• Pinewood School, with K to 2 and grades 3 to 6 campuses on Fremont Avenue in Los Altos and a grades 7 to 12 campus on Fremont Road in Los Altos Hills.
• Eastside College Preparatory School, 1041 Myrtle Street, East Palo Alto. A tuition-free day and boarding high school for grades 9 to 12, founded in 1996.
• Crystal Springs Uplands School, a coeducational day school for grades 6 to 12 with its upper school in Hillsborough and its middle school in Belmont.
• The Nueva School, a school for gifted learners with a PreK to 8 campus in Hillsborough and a high school in San Mateo.
• The Harker School, a large TK to 12 day school in San Jose, about 30 minutes south.
• Stanford Online High School, an online independent school for grades 7 to 12 with its office at 415 Broadway, Redwood City. Classes meet as live online seminars.

Menlo School and Sacred Heart sit next to each other on Valparaiso Avenue. Our guides to Woodside and Atherton, Menlo Park and Los Altos Hills describe those towns.

Finding the full list

The schools above are only some of the private options in the area. The city also has Montessori, religious, language immersion and special education schools at the elementary and middle school levels. Two places to find more:

1. The California Department of Education publishes data on private schools that file the annual affidavit. You can filter by city.
2. The city's welcome page for new residents links to a Bay Area private school listing, which it notes is not complete.

Treat any directory as a starting point and confirm grades, location and programs on each school's own site.

The admissions calendar

Most independent schools in the area admit students for the following fall through a single annual cycle. A typical pattern looks like this, though each school sets its own dates:

Kindergarten and the first grade of middle and high school usually have the most openings. Other grades depend on how many students leave. For fall 2027, Harker, Nueva and Crystal Springs Uplands list January 5, 2027 application deadlines and Eastside lists December 11, 2026. If you are moving mid-year, call admissions offices directly to ask about openings. Remember that PAUSD choice lotteries and transfer windows also fall in January and February, so families weighing both systems face overlapping deadlines.

Tuition and financial aid

Tuition varies widely by school and grade level and changes every year, so we do not list figures. Most schools publish tuition on their admissions pages along with fees for lunch, transportation, trips and technology. Many independent schools offer need-based financial aid, usually through a separate application with its own deadline. Ask about aid at the start of the process rather than after an admission offer. This page does not give financial advice.

Questions to ask on a visit

• What is the school's educational approach and how does it show up in a normal day?
• How large are classes and how are students grouped?
• What support exists for students who learn differently?
• How does the school handle drop-off, pickup and after-school care?
• Which high schools or colleges do graduates go on to? How does the school help with that step?
• What is the accreditation and who governs the school?

Frequently asked questions