9 of the best private elementary schools in NYC
(including 2 gems in Brooklyn!)
As every NYC family knows, raising kids in New York City means your children are growing up with the whole world at their doorstep. It’s a lot of hard work making it all happen—yes—but if your child grows up in New York, they have access to some of the best experiences available, including top-notch education.
Several New York elementary schools are some of the finest in the country, giving children access to unrivaled learning opportunities and setting them on a path to attend challenging NYC high schools and prestigious universities. With this in mind, picking the right elementary school for your child can be quite nerve-wracking.
We’ve rounded up nine of the best private elementary schools in NYC and what they offer, to help you decide what’s right for your family. And with a strong Smart Sitting community in Brooklyn, we made sure to include two of the top schools in the borough as well.
Avenues: The World School
Location: Chelsea
Grades: Pre-K–12
Tuition: $62,700
Focus: All students at Avenues gain proficiency in either Mandarin or Spanish through an immersion program, and admission to the school equals access to any of the campuses in New York, São Paulo, Shenzhen and Online.
Top private NYC elementary school — Avenues: The World School
City and Country
Location: Greenwich Village
Grades: Pre-K–8
Tuition: $51,500–$52,900
Focus: C&C is a progressive independent school started over 100 years ago with a focus on understanding the process of learning and the individual as a part of a bigger Group, with students in older grades tasked with assisting younger, incoming students.
Top private NYC elementary school — City and Country
Friends Seminary
Location: Gramercy
Grades: K–12
Tuition: $56,300
Focus: The oldest continuously operated, independent, co-educational school in NYC. Adhering to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), the school philosophy is based on the Quaker idea of God in every person, and promotes discipline in silence, study, and service, with many notable alumni.
Top private NYC elementary school — Friends Seminary
Blue School
Location: Lower Manhattan - Seaport
Grades: Pre-K–8
Tuition: $55,100
Focus: another progressive independent school, Blue School was started by the Blue Man Group and focuses on creativity and parent involvement with its roots in Reggio Emilia pedagogy.
Top private NYC elementary school — Blue School
Trevor Day School
Location: Upper East Side
Grades: Pre-K–12
Tuition: $55,200–$56,000
Focus: A long-standing elite day school on the Upper East Side, Trevor Day is an academically rigorous school that offers Common Spaces where students and teachers can meet and interact.
Top private NYC elementary school — Trevor Day School
Ethical Culture Fieldston School
Location: Upper West Side (Ethical Culture, Pre-K through 5th grade) and Riverdale (Fieldston, middle and high school)
Grades: Pre-K–12
Tuition: $57,997
Focus: Another historically significant school, Ethical Culture does - as the name suggests - put a strong emphasis on ethics, with upperclassmen teaching younger students on the subject; the high school has opted out of Advanced Placement courses to focus on inspiring more creative and critical thinking.
Top private NYC elementary school — Ethical Culture Fieldston School
The Dalton School
Location: Upper East Side
Grades: K–12
Tuition: $57,970
Focus: One of the top schools in the nation, students follow the “Dalton Plan”, taking responsibility for their own learning and pursuits, gathered in “Houses”, and assigned smaller “Laboratory” groups for specialized work throughout their time at the school.
Top private NYC elementary school — The Dalton School
Saint Ann’s School
Location: Brooklyn Heights
Grades: Pre-K–12
Tuition: $53,450–$55,050
Focus: Like many of the other top level progressive schools, the focus here is on learning to learn, on being guided by curiosity, but St Ann’s takes it up a notch by doing away with grades all together and fostering a casual learning environment with a heavy emphasis on art, creativity, and community.
Top private NYC elementary school — Saint Ann’s School
Brooklyn Friends School
Location: Downtown Brooklyn
Grades: Pre-K–12
Tuition: $53,900
Brooklyn Friends is also an independent school founded by the Quakers and on Quaker philosophies with a 100% acceptance rate to 4-year colleges for the graduating class, and offers the International Baccalaureate Diploma program for high school students.
Top private NYC elementary school — Brooklyn Friends
Set Your Kids Up for Success in NYC
No matter which of these schools a child in New York City attends, they are likely to graduate with a wealth of experience and knowledge—and an open door to pretty much any top-level university in the country.
New York SmartSitters work with a large number of students from these schools, helping to enrich their after-school hours to the same degree they experience in the classroom.