Alternatives to Your Public School District
Private and charter schools around Walnut Creek, Lamorinda, Danville, San Ramon, Concord, Pleasant Hill and Martinez.
If your assigned district school is not right for your kid, there are two other kinds of school here. Charter schools are public and free, but they sit outside the district boundary system, so you apply rather than get assigned. Private schools you pay for.
This is what exists near us, what it costs where that is published, and who can actually get in.
Published August 23, 2026
Charter schools you can drive to
There are three, and they are in two cities. Walnut Creek has one and Concord has two. There are none in Lafayette, Moraga, Orinda, Danville, San Ramon, Alamo, Pleasant Hill or Martinez.
That is not an oversight in this list. San Ramon Valley Unified, one of the largest districts in the state, has approved no charter schools at all. Neither have any of the Lamorinda districts, nor Walnut Creek School District, nor Martinez Unified. A charter needs a local district or the county to approve it, and districts where families are broadly happy rarely do.
Eagle Peak Montessori School Walnut Creek · 1-8 7/10
800 Hutchinson Rd · 301 students · English 65.14%, math 38.53% (2024-25)
Who can apply: Any student in California. No district requirement and no geographic preference.
Montessori, with mixed-age classrooms. There is no kindergarten. The real catch is space: only about 36 to 40 openings a year in first grade, and fifth grade and up are closed to new students. In practice this is a first-grade entry school. The lottery is the only way onto the waitlist, and you have to attend an information meeting and observe a class before applying.
Clayton Valley Charter High School Concord · 9-12 9/10
1101 Alberta Way · 2,373 students · English 70.08%, math 37.27% (2024-25)
Who can apply: Any California resident, space permitting. No geographic preference, so a Danville or Lafayette family applies on the same footing as a Concord one.
A big comprehensive high school with five career academies: arts, engineering and design, medical, public service, and game programming. Over 19 AP courses. It used to be a regular Mt. Diablo high school and converted in 2012, which is why it has no district boundary.
Rocketship Futuro Academy Concord · TK-5 5/10
2351 Olivera Rd · 669 students · English 43.01%, math 47.96% (2024-25)
Who can apply: Open enrolment. Its policy says it admits all pupils who wish to attend, with a lottery if a grade fills up.
Personalised and project-based, with strong support for English learners. The only one of the three where math scores come out ahead of English.
One thing about Clayton Valley worth reading twice. It shows 9 out of 10, and its math proficiency is 37%. Both are correct. For high schools that rating leans heavily on graduation rates and college readiness rather than test scores, so the two can point in different directions.
Charter schools with no campus near you
If you are in Lamorinda or the San Ramon Valley, the local charter route does not exist. What does exist is homeschool and online charters, which are still free public schools.
There is a legal reason none of them has an office here. A charter school gets exactly one learning centre, and it has to be in the district where the school itself sits. So a school authorised in Sacramento cannot open one in Walnut Creek even if it wanted to.
Vista Oaks Charter School TK-12
Authorised by Byron Union School District, in Contra Costa County · 999 students (2024-25)
Nearest place to go in person: Byron, about 35 to 45 minutes east of Walnut Creek
The only homeschool charter actually authorised in this county. Homeschool and independent study, with a learning centre you can use.
Connecting Waters Charter School, East Bay TK-12
Authorised by Alameda County Office of Education · 540 students (2024-25)
Nearest place to go in person: Union City, about 30 to 40 minutes from San Ramon or Danville
Independent study with a hybrid option, so there is more in-person time than the fully online schools. The closest learning centre to the San Ramon Valley.
Visions In Education TK-12
Authorised by San Juan Unified, Sacramento County · 7,460 students (2024-25)
Nearest place to go in person: None. It is fully online.
No building here, but it names Concord, Walnut Creek, Martinez and Alamo among the communities it serves, and it is much the largest of these. Home school academy for the younger grades, online independent study for older ones.
Valley View Charter Prep TK-12
Authorised by New Jerusalem School District, San Joaquin County · 655 students (2024-25)
Nearest place to go in person: None. It is fully online.
Tuition-free homeschool with personalised learning.
California Virtual Academy at San Joaquin TK-12
Authorised by New Jerusalem School District, San Joaquin County · 3,219 students (2025-26)
Nearest place to go in person: None. It is fully online.
Fully online. Worth knowing that only the San Joaquin school in this network can take Contra Costa students, and the network's own site lists dozens of counties without saying which school covers which. Check which one you are being enrolled in.
A lot of online charters advertise statewide and cannot actually take you. The rule is that they can only enrol students from their own county or one next door. For us that means Alameda, Sacramento, San Joaquin and Solano. Schools authorised anywhere else, however good they look, are not open to you.
Private schools
The range here is wider than people expect. The cheapest are around $9,600 a year and the most expensive day school is about $61,000, with boarding at Athenian higher again at $90,900. The split is mostly about what kind of school it is rather than how good it is. Catholic and Christian schools sit roughly between $9,600 and $14,500. Independent schools start around $18,500 and go up from there.
The low end surprises people. A parish or ministry school like this isn't pricing itself to break even on tuition alone, the way an independent school has to. The church or diocese behind it is covering part of the real cost, which is why these run so far under the secular schools even though nothing about the education itself is discount.
Two things worth knowing before you compare these to the district pages. Private schools do not take the state tests, so there are no scores for them anywhere. And the rating sites do not rate private schools at all. Some show parent review stars, which is a different thing entirely and not comparable to the 1 to 10 numbers on the other pages.
Walnut Creek
The Seven Hills School PK-8 · Independent
Tuition: $39,000 (K-4) / $43,990 (5-8), 2026-27
The only school here in the national independent-school associations. Says its fee covers field trips, meals, technology and athletics.
Sonder Creek Academy JK-8 · Independent
Tuition: $18,500 (K) / $19,100 (1-4) / $19,500 (5-8), 2026-27
Aimed at accelerated learners, with students often working a year or more ahead. Spanish or Mandarin four days a week.
NorthCreek Academy PK-8 · Christian
Tuition: $9,610 (TK-K) / $13,320 (1-5) / $13,840 (6-8), 2026-27
Classical model, and a ministry of NorthCreek Church.
Walnut Creek Christian Academy K-8 · Christian, Baptist
Tuition: $10,695 (K-5) / $11,195 (6-8), 2026-27
Contra Costa Christian Schools PK-12 · Christian
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
Berean Christian High School 9-12 · Christian
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception JK-8 · Catholic, Diocese of Oakland
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
Fusion Academy 7-12 · Independent
Tuition: Charged per class per term rather than per year, roughly $4,850 to $5,640 a class, 2026-27
One student and one teacher per classroom. A full-time year adds up quickly and the school does not publish an annual figure.
Lafayette
Bentley School (Upper School) 9-12 · Independent
Tuition: $61,460, 2026-27
Only the high school is in Lafayette. Bentley's kindergarten through eighth grade campus is in Oakland.
Contra Costa Jewish Day School K-8 · Jewish, pluralistic
Tuition: $21,750 (K-5) / $24,750 (6-8), 2026-27
Describes itself as including all Jewish traditions along with interfaith and unaffiliated families.
The Springstone School 6-12 · Independent
Tuition: $35,000 privately placed, $40,500 if placed by a district, 2026-27
Built for students with autism, ADHD, anxiety or executive function difficulties. Classes of about eight.
St. Perpetua School Through 8 · Catholic, Diocese of Oakland
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
The Meher Schools PK-5 · Non-denominational
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
Moraga
The Saklan School PK-8 · Independent
Tuition: $35,200 (K-5) / $41,500 (6-8), 2026-27
Project-based, one class per grade, specialists in Spanish, science, art, music and PE at every level.
Orinda
Orinda Academy 8-12 · Independent
Tuition: $40,900 (8th) / $55,100 (9-12), 2026-27
College prep with a lot of built-in support: learning specialists, help with executive function, and a social skills programme.
Holden High School 9-12 · Independent
Tuition: $46,904 posted, though the school says the median family actually pays about $33,000, 2026-27
Very small and deliberately alternative. Built for students who have struggled with mental health, school refusal or academic failure. Weekly one-to-one counselling is included.
Danville
The Athenian School 6-12 · Independent
Tuition: $48,250 day (6-8) / $59,275 day (9-12) / $90,900 boarding, 2026-27
Day and boarding. There is no AP and no IB by choice, and no class rank. Every student does a 26-day wilderness expedition in junior year to graduate.
St. Isidore Catholic School K-Prep through 8 · Catholic, Diocese of Oakland
Tuition: $12,426 Catholic / $13,364 non-Catholic for one child, 2026-27
The largest Catholic school in the diocese. Priced per family and flat across all grades, and the two rates are Catholic and non-Catholic rather than parishioner and non-parishioner.
San Ramon Valley Christian Academy PK-8 · Presbyterian
Tuition: About $13,730 a year (TK-5) / $14,570 (6-8), 2026-27
Despite the name it is in Danville, not San Ramon. A ministry of Community Presbyterian Church of Danville. Runs a resource programme for students with an IEP or diagnosed learning differences.
San Ramon
The Dorris-Eaton School K-8 · Independent
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
Its preschool campus is in Alamo. It left Walnut Creek in 2015, so any listing showing a Walnut Creek campus is out of date.
Concord
De La Salle High School 9-12, boys · Catholic, Lasallian
Tuition: $24,990 for 2024-25, the most recent published figure
Carondelet High School 9-12, girls · Catholic
Tuition: $26,565, 2026-27
Directly across the street from De La Salle, and the two share academic programming.
Wood Rose Academy K-8 · Catholic, independent
Tuition: $11,000, plus about $550 in fees
Classical model. Not a parish or diocesan school.
Hope Academy for Dyslexics 3-8 · Independent
Tuition: $19,500 a year plus a $200 materials fee
Built specifically for dyslexic students, with multisensory teaching across every subject and about three students per teacher.
Anova Center for Education 1-12 · Independent
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
For students with autism and other neurodevelopmental differences. Placement here is often paid for by your home district through an IEP rather than by you.
De La Salle Academy 5-8, boys · Catholic, Lasallian
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
Built for boys from families with limited means, so cost is worked out individually rather than published. Small classes.
The Concordia School Age 2 through 6 · Independent
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
Montessori since 1973. In Concord, despite often being listed under Pleasant Hill.
Pleasant Hill
Christ the King School K-8 · Catholic, Diocese of Oakland
Tuition: $11,360 for one child, $20,770 for two, 2026-27
Priced per family rather than per grade.
Pleasant Hill Adventist Academy K-12 · Seventh-day Adventist
Tuition: Not published. You have to call.
Martinez
Saint Catherine of Siena School TK-8 · Catholic, Diocese of Oakland
Tuition: $10,700 for one child, $18,725 for two, 2026-27
The only private school in Martinez. Founded 1949.
If a mainstream classroom is not working
This is probably the most useful part of the page. Several schools here exist specifically for kids who are struggling somewhere else, and they are easy to miss because they do not advertise like the others.
- The Springstone School in Lafayette, for autism, ADHD, anxiety and executive function difficulties.
- Hope Academy for Dyslexics in Concord, built entirely around dyslexia.
- Anova Center for Education in Concord, for autism and other neurodevelopmental differences.
- Holden High School in Orinda, for students who have had a hard time with mental health, school refusal or failing.
- Orinda Academy, a regular college prep school with a lot of built-in support for kids who need scaffolding but not a special school.
Worth knowing about the two in Concord: placement at a school like Anova is often paid for by your home district through an IEP rather than by you. That changes the money question completely, so ask your district before you rule it out on cost.
Schools you will find that are not there
Search for schools around here and you will hit several that have closed or were never what the listing says. These come up often enough to be worth naming.
Contra Costa School of Performing Arts
Closed in June 2025. It was a charter in Walnut Creek for grades 6 to 12. Its old pages are still up and several school directories still list it as open.
The Dorris-Eaton School, Walnut Creek
There is no Walnut Creek campus. The school moved to San Ramon in 2015 and its preschool is in Alamo.
Montessori School of San Ramon
Closed in June 2025, and it was in Danville rather than San Ramon. One directory still lists it as open with another school's website attached.
Sycamore Valley Day School, Danville
Closed in 2025.
FAME Public Charter School
Closed years ago, but still listed in homeschool directories as serving this county.
Horizons School, Pleasant Hill
Not a charter, despite at least one search engine saying so. It is a district independent study programme.
About this page
Tuition comes from each school's own website and is for the year shown. Where a school does not publish a figure, this page says so rather than guessing, because the numbers floating around on directory sites are often years old or simply wrong.
I last checked all of this on August 23, 2026. Tuition changes every year and schools open and close.
Everything here is from a public source — school and district websites and their own boundary tools, the state test results, and federal enrollment data. None of it is private or insider information, and none of it is my own estimate.
Think something here is wrong? Please tell me at report@mountdiablofamilies.com and I will fix it. I would far rather hear about it than leave another parent working off a bad number.
I am not ranking these schools. Which one is right depends on your kid.
This is an independent guide. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or speaking for any school district. Where a district’s logo appears, it is there to identify the district the page is about.