PSCS is a non-profit tuition-based community school. Tuition pays our staff, rent, and budgeted program costs and affiliations. Being a small non-profit school allows us to build family connection, teach honest history, and evolve our pedagogy, professional development, and strategies along with ever-shifting academic and social needs.

Our staff and families understand the word "private" sounds like "inaccessible" to some, especially as applying to schools is already a complicated process. Please consider applying anyway. For each of the last 10 years, PSCS has funded over $100,000 in tuition and program costs for families who qualify. We do this by fundraising each year for roughly 10% of our budget, so our community may access truly diverse perspective and in recognition of the additional labor of those most marginalized by systemic inequity.  

In order to receive funding, families are asked to submit financial information by or before the date due to FACTS Grant & Aid Assessment Service, an impartial online system that provides PSCS with an overview of your objective financial data.

We also encourage those applying for aid to submit written subjective data—usually a letter—submitted to the PSCS Tuition Access Committee. This committee, which includes administrators, reviews all information submitted, objective and subjective, to determine allocations and awards. If you have questions regarding the aid process, please call 206-324-4350 or email.

Program Access

PSCS works hard to include fees and expenses in tuition costs and not nickel and dime families as we go along in a school year. Added fees depend on individual student activities and the needs of certain courses. However, we want students to be able to do things that may have associated fees, regardless of their economic status. As such, we offer program funding to families for whom added costs might stand in the way of a student doing activities or taking courses they are interested in.

In addition to need-based considerations, the PSCS Tuition Access Committee takes into account:

• timeliness of applications
• tuition obligations for additional dependents
• assets
• all sources of income