At a Glance
A pocket-sized Catholic elementary where every child is known — and every faith is welcome.
Best suited for
Families who want a small, faith-friendly elementary with serious academics, real attention to social-emotional health, and individualized teaching — and who are ready to plan deliberately for middle school.
What stands out
- A 6.6:1 student-teacher ratio that allows real individualized attention academically and emotionally.
- A Catholic identity paired with genuinely inclusive admissions — families of all faiths and no faith attend.
- A rigorous academic spine built on Singapore Math and the Teachers College Reading and Writing Program.
- Daily Spanish instruction from the early years, which is unusual for a school of this size.
- A 79-student enrollment that creates a family-like community where parents and children know one another across grades.
Things to consider
- Total enrollment tops out at 79 — wonderfully intimate, but it means a small peer group, limited sports options, and a narrow extracurricular menu.
- The school ends at 5th grade, so families will need to navigate a competitive Manhattan middle school search in 6th grade.
- Tuition ranges from $18,000 to $36,000 — families should confirm which grade levels fall at which end of the range before budgeting.
- Catholic faith formation and prayer are real parts of daily life; families seeking a strictly secular experience should weigh that.
- The campus is a small school building in a dense Manhattan block — charming and walkable, but don't expect a big gym, fields, or sprawling grounds.
Identity
A Catholic elementary grounded in the values of character, competence, and compassion, with a whole-child philosophy that addresses intellectual, spiritual, social, emotional, and physical development. Founded on a Roman Catholic mission, the school explicitly welcomes students and families of all faiths or no faith. Coeducational, serving PK through 5th grade.
Community
With just 79 students total, the community is genuinely intimate — most families know one another, and teachers know every child by name across the school. The student body is largely White (62%) and Multiracial (26.6%), with smaller representation from Asian (1.3%), Black (5.1%), and Hispanic (5.1%) backgrounds, reflecting a moderately diverse community shaped by the surrounding West Village.
Neighborhood
The West Village is one of Manhattan's wealthiest and most storied neighborhoods, with a median household income of $150,339 and 84% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher. Tree-lined streets, brownstones, and independent shops give it a small-town feel that's unusual in Manhattan, and a poverty rate of 6.6% sits well below the citywide average. It is the kind of neighborhood where school pickup and dinner reservations overlap easily.
The school is essentially at the crossroads of the subway system: W 4 St-Washington Square is about a 1-minute walk (serving the A/C/E and B/D/F/M lines), and Christopher St-Stonewall (1 train) is about a 3-minute walk.
Notable Programs
What Parents Are Saying
Highly positive reviews praising small class sizes, excellent teachers, strong academics, welcoming community, focus on social-emotional learning, and mental health support; some concern about small class size limitations in middle school
Synthesized from public parent reviews · Apr 2026
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Frequently Asked Questions
- Is ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH a good school?
- Published quality ratings aren't available for ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH yet on Motley. It's a private school serving grades Pre-K to 5 in West Village.
- What grades does ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH serve?
- ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH serves grades Pre-K to 5.
- How do students get into ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH?
- ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH runs its own private admissions process — typically an application, a visit, and sometimes testing.
- Is ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH public, charter, or private?
- ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH is a private school.
- What neighborhood is ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH in?
- ACADEMY OF ST JOSEPH is in West Village, Manhattan.