Best Private Middle Schools in San Francisco, CA

Private Middle School

Fusion Academy offers a completely personalized private middle school experience. From classes to scheduling, everything is customized around your student. We balance academics and socialization to create a private junior high school experience unlike any other. Private middle school classes at Fusion Academy are 1-to-1: just 1 student and 1 teacher per class. Teachers match your child’s pace and preferences so they can learn better, dive deeper, and never get left behind. Schedules are customized around your family’s goals and plans. Students connect and collaborate with peers in a safe and structured environment. Coursework is completed as part of the school day. Daily reports for each class session are communicated to parents from your student’s teachers. NOTE: Tuition rates are calculated per course, per term and will vary based on the student’s custom curriculum.

Middle School

Sterne's Middle School serves grades 6–8 within the school's broader strengths-based independent program for neurodiverse learners, offering tailored learning experiences, phonics-based structured literacy intervention, and differentiated instructional groupings designed to support students with dyslexia, ADHD, and language-based learning challenges.

Middle School

Junior High

Holy Name's Junior High is a departmentalized grades 6–8 program where subject-specialist teachers guide students through core academics, electives, and community service hours, with advanced-track options in math and ELA designed to prepare students for honors-level high school coursework.

Middle School

Middle School 5th–8th Grade

San Francisco Friends School's middle school program spans grades 5–8 and centers on an inquiry-driven, interdisciplinary curriculum guided by Quaker values of reflection, integrity, and stewardship, with each grade organized around shared questions across disciplines.

Grades 6-8

Grades 6-8 is the upper grades portion of Golden Bridges School's Waldorf-inspired K-8 program, where the curriculum emphasizes experiential academics, critical thinking, and leadership development, with weekly full-day sessions at Hawk Creek Farm woven into every student's education.

Middle School

Middle School

PKS Middle School is an inquiry-based, bilingual program in which students pursue sustained interdisciplinary projects in both Mandarin and English. The school views immersion at this level as critical for developing true bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism.

Middle School

The 6-8 Program is the middle school portion of San Francisco Christian School's K-12 Christ-centered academic program, where core subjects including Bible, English, math, science, history, and literature are taught alongside technology, fine arts, and physical education through a biblical worldview lens.

Middle School

The middle school grades are the upper portion of St. Philip's TK–8 Catholic academic program, where a rigorous curriculum rooted in Gospel values is paired with enrichment classes in Spanish, Art, Music, Technology, and PE, and community service requirements that increase each year through 8th grade.

Middle School Grades 6-8

Middle School

The Grades 6-8 portion of Mission Dolores Academy's K-8 Catholic program, where middle schoolers follow a Common Core-based curriculum and receive dedicated high school placement support through MDA's Mentoring Program, which guides eighth graders through applications, essay writing, and HSPT preparation.

Junior High

St. Gabriel's Junior High is the upper-grades portion of a Catholic parish school whose program is grounded in Christian values and challenges students to become responsible citizens and enthusiastic learners. The school holds dual accreditation from the Western Catholic Educational Association (WCEA) and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).

Middle School

The Middle School (6-8) is part of San Francisco Waldorf School's integrated preschool-through-twelfth-grade program, built around a balanced curriculum that integrates the sciences, mathematics, humanities, and arts alongside hands-on and interdisciplinary learning.

Grades 5–8

The Brandeis School of San Francisco is a private Jewish day school whose middle school program integrates challenging academics, Judaic studies, and inquiry-based learning. Tuition covers 1:1 MacBook laptops, field trips, overnight retreats, athletic coaching and uniforms, musical theater, studio art, and Maker Education.

Middle School

Middle School

Middle School

Cornerstone's middle school program, housed at the Cambridge campus, balances academic rigor with a nurturing environment as students prepare for the more demanding coursework of high school, while remaining grounded in the school's broader mission of Christian faith, bilingual Chinese-English instruction, and whole-child development.

Middle School

The 6th Grade is the inaugural middle school offering at Rise University Preparatory, an independent Christian school that equips students academically, socially, and spiritually with the goal of 100% university acceptance.

Middle School

Brightworks Middle School grounds grades 6–8 in project-based learning, where students take increasing ownership of complex, multi-step projects while collaborators explicitly teach project management, iteration, growth mindset, and reflection as foundational skills.

Upper School

Upper School (Grades 5-8) is the culminating academic phase at Adda Clevenger, an independent TK-8 school where a fast pace and high expectations drive an accelerated, arts-integrated curriculum built on the conceptual foundations established in the Lower School years.

Middle School

The middle school program at HSArts offers a rigorous academic curriculum spanning grades 6–8, combining humanities and STEM with a comprehensive arts program, all in small-class settings that allow for seminar-style engagement and individualized attention.

Middle School

Middle School

The Middle School at Presidio Hill covers grades six through eight, offering an integrated, hands-on curriculum enriched by field trips, service learning, electives, life skills classes, clubs, and athletics. A dedicated high school placement program includes SSAT preparation and a weekly High School Counseling class in eighth grade.

6th–8th Grade

Millennium School's 6th–8th grade program is an independent middle school built around a transdisciplinary curriculum that integrates STEM, humanities, and creative expression through inquiry-based "Quests," real-world expeditions, and daily mindfulness practices, with a 7:1 student-to-faculty ratio.

Grades 6-8

The Grades 6–8 middle school program at Alpha San Francisco uses a mastery-based, AI-driven model in which students complete core academics each morning and spend afternoons in life skills workshops covering areas such as leadership, entrepreneurship, and public speaking. Alpha San Francisco holds Cognia accreditation, and students are assessed through nationally normed MAP testing.

Junior High

Junior High is the 7th–8th grade program at St. Cecilia, a WCEA- and WASC-accredited TK–8 Catholic school in San Francisco whose mission centers on academic and spiritual formation guided by Gospel values.

Middle School Program

St. John's middle school program covers grades 6–8 with a curriculum aligned to California Common Core standards and shaped by Catholic teachings, including daily core academic subjects plus weekly Spanish instruction and twice-weekly PE and nutrition education.

6th-8th Grade

The 6th–8th grade program is part of St. Thomas More's Catholic TK–8 school, where curriculum follows Archdiocesan Guidelines and California State Standards and includes mathematics, English language arts, social studies, religion, art, technology, and visual and performing arts.

Middle School

La Scuola's Grades 6-8 program is the school's only multilingual International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB-MYP) in San Francisco, combining the IB-MYP's eight subject groups with Reggio Emilia pedagogy; no prior Italian is required, and 70% of the curriculum is taught in English.

Middle School

Middle School

The Middle School program at La Scuola International School combines the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB-MYP) with Reggio Emilia pedagogy, delivering a multilingual curriculum in which 70% of instruction is in English and Italian is offered at beginner, intermediate, or advanced levels with no prior Italian required for incoming students.

Middle School

SF Day's Middle School spans grades 6–8 and uses a high school-style schedule of homeroom and subject-specific classrooms, with roughly 55 students per grade. The program pairs a rigorous academic curriculum with robust arts, innovation, and athletics, and builds community through structures such as daily advisory, affinity circles, interest clubs, and mixed-grade electives.

Middle School

Middle School

St. Peter's middle school program covers grades 6–8 with a rigorous core curriculum—religion, language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies—taught by subject-specialist educators, alongside a broader Catholic mission focused on holistic development and preparing students for college-preparatory high schools.

Middle School

Grades 6–8 is the middle school portion of St. Stephen's K-8 Catholic program, where six departmentalized teachers bring subject-area expertise to core academics, and specialized instruction in Spanish, technology, physical education, and music continues alongside dedicated math and English teachers and after-school support in technology and math.

Junior High

The Junior High program at Saints Peter and Paul School spans sixth through eighth grades, preparing students for high school and beyond within a Salesian Catholic tradition that emphasizes reason, respect, and the development of individual talents.

Middle School

Middle School

Cornerstone Academy's middle school occupies the Cambridge campus and offers grades 6–8 within the school's faith-based, bilingual Chinese-English academic program, balancing structure and rigor with a nurturing environment as students prepare for more demanding high school coursework.

Grades 4 Through 8

Grades 4 through 8 is the upper portion of Burke's K–8 independent school for girls, where the academic program balances rigor with real-world relevance, emphasizing "a focus on real-world problems, purpose, life skills, and preparing our graduates to approach their future with confidence, and resilience."

Upper School

Town's Upper School, spanning fifth through eighth grades, builds on Lower School foundations to develop academic skills and strength of character, with arts, engineering, athletics, and character development woven throughout.

Middle School

Middle School

Middle School

Middle School

The middle school program at Synergy is a progressive, independent grades 6–8 program where mixed-grade collaborative work, project-based learning, and a strong commitment to social justice and community engagement shape the academic experience.

Grades 5-8

The Grades 5–8 program at The Hamlin School is a K-8 girls' school that weaves Social and Emotional Learning throughout the academic curriculum and embeds grade-level capstone projects — including an entrepreneurship market in Grade 5 and a Washington D.C. immersive trip in Grade 7 — into a broader mission of preparing girls to become thinkers, leaders, and individuals of integrity.

Grades 6-8

Grades 6-8 is the middle school portion of Live Oak's independent K-8 program, where each grade has its own dedicated STEM lab and students take the Social Impact Studio — a class weaving together historical changemaking and hands-on community action around social justice themes.

Middle School

Alta Vista's middle school is the grades 6–8 portion of AVS's independent STEAM-based program, built on inquiry-based and hands-on learning that balances intellectual rigor with student voice, choice, and real-world connection. Distinctive pillars include advisories, student leadership, J-Term experiential learning, Humanities and STEM Expos, and an Arts Bonanza performance.

Middle School

La Scuola's middle school program delivers multilingual education through the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Program (IB-MYP), with Reggio Emilia pedagogy continuing into grades 6–8 and Italian offered at beginner, intermediate, or advanced levels for incoming students. No prior Italian experience is required, and roughly 70% of the curriculum is taught in English.

Middle School

Middle School

San Francisco Schoolhouse's middle school is a small, project-based program where interdisciplinary, inquiry-driven units build core academics, social-emotional competencies, and civic engagement across single- and multi-age groups, using San Francisco's parks, neighborhoods, and cultural institutions as extended learning spaces.

Middle School

St. Finn Barr's middle school program serves grades 6–8 within a Catholic academic community dedicated to developing critical thinkers and lifelong learners who live Gospel values. Middle schoolers complete grade-level service hour requirements and are supported by a dedicated subject-specialist team covering language arts, math, science, and social studies.