To find the best private school in Texas, start by narrowing your search by location, focusing on top schools in Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston.
Beyond location, consider other important factors that may have a greater impact on whether the school is the right fit for your child, such as:
- Teaching philosophy: Private schools tend to have very clear teaching philosophies and methods — and they are often distinct from one other. For example, The Hockaday School in Dallas follows its Four Cornerstones philosophy, covering character, courtesy, scholarship and athletics. Our private school, Fusion Academy, has a philosophy of personalized education that manifests as 1-to-1 classes.
- Class size: One of the advantages of private schools is their small class size. With a smaller student-to-teacher ratio, teachers can provide students with more personal attention than they could in public schools.
- Flexible enrollment: Most private schools only allow students to enroll at the beginning of a new semester. But this may not work for you. For example, you might be moving into a new district in the middle of the school year, or want to take your child out of school mid-semester for some remedial support.
- Flexible class scheduling: Typically, private schools run on a Monday–Friday, morning-to-afternoon schedule, with relatively limited freedom on which classes you can take during which days and times. This format won’t work for all students. Some students may want or need more flexibility, such as students who are in athletic or other extracurricular programs.
- Extracurricular activities: There’s more to a private school education than just what happens in the classroom. Activities like sports, music, theater or debating are great ways for students to become more well-rounded — and they’re also seen favorably by college admissions teams.
- Tuition costs: Private schools can be a major investment for families. If you’d like your child to attend a private school but are worried about the expense, consider looking for a school with lower fees or a generous financial aid program. Note that all the schools we discuss in this article provide some type of financial aid or payment plans.
Based on these factors, we present the best 8 private schools in Texas.
Best Private Schools in Texas
- Fusion Academy
- St Mark’s School of Texas
- St Stephen’s Episcopal School
- The Hockaday School
- St John’s School
- Greenhill School
- St Thomas High School
- The Village School
1. Fusion Academy: Best Private School in Texas for 1-to-1 Learning
Fusion Academy is a private middle and high school in which students have 1-to-1 classes with their teachers. This is valuable because it means that the teacher can adapt the curriculum according to what suits the students’ individual needs.
Any student can benefit from 1-to-1 attention, but it’s particularly helpful for students with learning differences such as ADHD or sensory processing disorder or students who will benefit the most from being able to learn at their own pace and in their own way.
We have 8 campuses across Texas, in the following cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Plano, San Antonio, Southlake, Sugar Land, and The Woodlands.
We have campuses in 18 states and Washington, D.C. To see the full list of all 80+ Fusion campuses and explore those in your local area, click here.
For students who want to attend online classes, we offer Fusion Global — virtual teaching with the same personalized approach. When a student creates their schedule, they can choose in-person classes, online classes, and a hybrid of both.
For example, a student can attend one of the Texas campuses half the week and then take classes online from home for the other half.
Beyond our middle school and high school programs, we also provide private tutoring, post-secondary counseling and interventions in math and reading.
Let’s dive deeper into Fusion’s class sizes, flexible scheduling, extracurricular activities, and tuition costs.
Classes Tailored to Each Student’s Individual Needs
Private schools generally have smaller class sizes than public schools. For example, the majority of the schools in this article have classes ranging from 6–15 students. Students benefit from these smaller class sizes, as they can receive more personalized attention from their teachers.
Fusion takes this principle to its logical conclusion, with 1-to-1 classes that maximize the amount of personal attention a teacher can give to a student.
All students can benefit to some degree from having the classes tailored to their individual needs, but this format is particularly useful for:
- Gifted children: In a typical school environment, gifted children sometimes get bored or restless. Teachers are generally too busy focusing on teaching to the average student and controlling the class size to be able to stretch gifted students. By contrast, at Fusion, classes are conducted at the student’s own pace, ensuring there’s always the right level of challenge to keep the student engaged.
- Students with learning differences: In larger classes, children with dyslexia, dyscalculia, ADHD or sensory processing disorder can easily fall between the cracks. Let’s imagine that a child with ADD wants to play with a fidget spinner because it helps them to concentrate. This wouldn’t be allowed in most school environments because it would distract the other students, but it’s actively encouraged at Fusion if it improves the learning experience for the child. Fusion teachers have the freedom to tailor the classroom environment to the student.
Whereas a teacher in a traditional school might see a hundred or more students every day, Fusion teachers rarely teach more than 7 or 8. This means that they have more time and emotional bandwidth to focus on your child.
Flexible Enrollment and Class Scheduling
Education at Fusion is not just tailored to the preferences of your child: it’s flexible to the point that it can take into account the needs of your entire family’s schedule.
For example, unlike most private schools, Fusion doesn’t limit enrollment to the beginning of a new semester. This is beneficial for:
- Families who are in the process of moving to a new school district in the middle of a semester.
- Families who don’t want to wait until the end of a semester to take their child out of school, perhaps to get some remedial support in math or literacy.
- Families whose child has finished a course of remedial support and wants to rejoin regular school mid-semester, as opposed to waiting until the new semester.
- Cases where children want to try a new subject or a new teacher without waiting until the next semester.
Whereas most traditional schools limit families to a rigid Monday–Friday schedule, Fusion gives you more flexibility in terms of when you take classes. This is advantageous for any student who wants to attend school in tandem with any other sort of program, for example:
- Students with depression or anxiety who need to schedule therapy in addition to their regular classes.
- Students who are on a college athletics track and need to spend a large amount of time outside lessons training.
- Families who have a child who wants to be a professional musician and spends multiple hours each day practicing, playing in bands and other similar extracurricular activities.
Although many private schools offered online lessons during COVID, most have now gone back to in-person. But what if online classes or a hybrid model were a good fit for your family? Fusion gives you this flexibility, and you can even switch between different models if you need to. This is helpful for:
- Families who travel frequently for work between multiple states, or who have multiple homes.
- International families who spend part of the year in the US and part of the year overseas.
- Digital nomad families who travel permanently but want to give their children a high-quality, consistent model of education that they can access from anywhere.
Social and Extracurricular Activities That Enrich The Learning Experience
There’s more to a good school experience than just academics, so Fusion offers numerous ways for children to socialize, engage with their peers and have fun.
Traditional schools are so large that it’s easy for students to fall between the cracks socially, even with well-intentioned staff. By contrast, at Fusion, teachers are specifically trained to look out for opportunities to help students make friends. For example, if a teacher came across a student who was athletic but quite shy, they would go out of their way to connect them with like-minded students on campus.
Fusion has also developed a unique space called a Homework Café. There are two of these on each campus, and they’re also available online via Fusion Global. One is a quiet place for homework, allowing children to do homework at school without having to take it home with them.
From the perspective of the social aspect of school, it’s the second Homework Café which is more relevant here. This is a social space where students can meet, connect with each other socially, collaborate on school projects and explore their hobbies in a variety of school clubs. Activities on offer include photography, movies, DnD, chess, video games, yoga and more!
Beyond the Homework Cafés, Fusion campuses often organize day trips or excursions, typically on Fridays. Historically, these have included activities such as rock climbing, hiking, volunteering in the local neighborhood, or community service.
Flexible Tuition Packages and Financing Options
Tuition at Fusion varies greatly according to what your family needs. For example, you could pay for a full-time program, just one remedial course, or anything in between. The price would depend on the range and length of services you require.
Beyond depending on the type of program you need, each Fusion campus also has its own individual pricing structure. For example, here’s the breakdown for the Austin campus:
Note that these prices are for the 2024–2025 year and don’t include registration fees.
For other services, such as tutoring, counseling and test prep, tuition costs in Austin look like this:
And here are the options you have in terms of making payment:
To find out more about Fusion Academy and see if it’s the right fit for your child, you can request more information here.
2. St. Mark’s School of Texas
St. Mark’s School of Texas is a private, college-preparatory school for boys in grades 1–12 based in Dallas. The school’s level of academic prowess is extraordinary, with the class of 2024 averaging an SAT score of 1530, which is in the 99th percentile nationally. St. Mark’s also boasts a state-of-the-art planetarium, robotics and DNA labs, and internet access to observatories in rural Peru.
The school is also extremely successful in sports, at both a state and a national level. Sports where St Mark’s is especially strong include lacrosse, swimming, tennis, water polo and wrestling. In the latter alone, the school won a remarkable 37 conference championships between 1973 and 2015.
Tuition is on a sliding scale from $31,435 for 1st Grade up to $39,355 for 12th Grade.
3. St. Stephen’s Episcopal School
Located in Austin, St. Stephen’s Episcopal School is a prestigious independent school that caters to both boarders (grades 8–12) and day students (grades 6–12) alike. As its name suggests, the school is part of the Diocese of Texas, and as such is grounded in a Christian tradition. It attracts students from across America as well as from overseas.
St Stephen’s is particularly well-known for its tennis, soccer and theater facilities. For families whose children have interests in these areas, the school offers a compelling path to becoming well-rounded young adults, with a balance of academic rigor and extra-curricular skills.
St Stephen’s charges $35,900 tuition for day students and $74,400 for those who wish to board.
4. The Hockaday School
Based in Dallas, the Hockaday School is the largest K-12 private girls’ school in both Texas and the whole US. Previously a boarding school, Hockaday has announced that it will phase out the boarding option by 2025 at the latest, so that it can focus solely on day students.
Hockaday has a unique, secular philosophy of education that’s based on the Four Cornerstones identified by its founder: Character, Courtesy, Scholarship and Athletics. These are timeless principles that set girls up for success a century ago when the school was founded and continue to do so today.
Tuition at Hockaday costs $38,082, or $32,095 for preschoolers.
5. St. John’s School
St. John’s is a private day school in Houston for students in grades K–12. The school is academically rigorous and set up to invest time and resources in your child’s learning, with one teacher for every 6 students. St. John’s School is situated next to the St John the Divine church, and often holds chapel services there.
Outside the academic curriculum, the school is best-known for its theater society, which offers Upper School students the opportunity to learn about all aspects of theatrical production, including technical crew and costume design. A large number of students are also involved in the fine arts niche, athletics and even community service.
Tuition ranges from $29,635 for Lower School up to $35,535 for Upper School.
6. Greenhill School
Greenhill School is a co-ed private school in Addison that educates students from Pre-K through Grade 12. The school combines a bustling community with a reputation for excelling academically in both state and national rankings. Greenhill is firmly embedded into the local neighborhood, with students required to complete 48 hours of community service before graduating.
Greenhill is known locally for the way that it nourishes the creative potential of its students. For example, the Design and Innovation Program helps students build creative design skills to solve business and industrial problems — sometimes even for real companies. The school’s band and orchestra also have a strong reputation and have won numerous prizes and competitions.
Tuition at Greenhill is on a sliding scale, starting at $31,800 for Pre-K and rising to $39,770 for 12th grade.
7. St. Thomas High School
St. Thomas is a Catholic private high school for boys based in downtown Houston. The school has occupied its present site since 1940, and the campus comes equipped with a fine arts center, a chapel, a library, a gym, baseball field and stadium. It’s known for being one of the most visually appealing campuses in the whole state.
Grounded in the Basilian Catholic tradition, which originated in Greece, St. Thomas aims to transform young men into servant-leaders through a combination of rigorous academics and comprehensive extracurricular activities. There are plenty of clubs and organizations for students to participate in, meaning there’s something for everybody.
St Thomas is the cheapest of the private schools in this article, with tuition costing $25,550 and one third of families on some form of financial aid.
8. The Village School
Based in Houston, The Village School is a co-ed, college-prep school for students between pre-K and 12th grade. The school mostly caters to day students, but it also has a successful boarding program. It’s one of the largest schools in the Houston area, and enjoys regular collaborations with world-renowned organizations such as NASA, MIT, UNICEF and Julliard.
The Village School boasts a 46,000 square foot athletic center, containing a collegiate regulation basketball court and two high school regulation cross courts. The swimming facilities are also impressive, with a 25-yard competition pool available for practice.
Tuition at The Village School ranges from $19,750 for preschoolers up to $32,380 for high school.
A Truly Personalized Education in Texas
When you’re looking for the best private school in Texas, Fusion Academy stands out due to its unique model of 1-to-1 education, flexible scheduling and inclusive social culture.
Reach out to us to find out if Fusion is the right fit for your child.
