Overview
The only multilingual school in New York City offering a progression from Montessori early childhood to the International Baccalaureate.
Our Approach
In the early years, Montessori builds independence, concentration, confidence, and a strong sense of responsibility for one’s own learning. These foundations support the transition into the International Baccalaureate (IB) program in Preschool 3, where students take an increasingly active role in asking questions, making connections, applying what they know, and developing as thoughtful, independent learners.
Multilingual learning is woven throughout that journey, giving students the opportunity to learn and communicate in more than one language while developing the perspective and flexibility to engage with a wider world.
Our Mission
Pine Street School is an internationally-minded community dedicated to providing an innovative, engaging, multilingual, and multicultural education that inspires and empowers our students to take mindful action for equity and the environment, making a positive impact on the world.
Language Immersion
Children begin in a trilingual Nursery environment where English, Mandarin, and Spanish are woven into daily life. Beginning in Preschool 3, families choose a Spanish-English or Mandarin-English pathway that continues through Grade 5. In Middle School, students continue in Mandarin or Spanish, with advanced German also available.
Families do not need to speak Spanish or Mandarin at home. Our classrooms welcome heritage speakers, continuing learners, and children brand new to the language, with instruction adapted to each.
Montessori Early Childhood
Montessori principles shape our earliest classrooms. Children work in calm, thoughtfully prepared environments where they make choices, repeat purposeful activities, and develop independence, concentration, and confidence. These habits provide a strong foundation for the inquiry-based learning of the IB Primary Years Programme.
International Baccalaureate (IB)
Beginning in Preschool 3, the International Baccalaureate guides learning through inquiry, helping students ask meaningful questions, make connections across subjects, and take increasing responsibility for their work as they grow. Research, discussion, experimentation, design, presentation, and reflection all play a role in helping students become thoughtful, self-directed learners who can apply what they know in new situations.
Pine Street School is an authorized IB World School for the Primary Years Programme (PYP) and an MYP Candidate School following the Middle Years Programme framework in Grades 6 through 8.
A Classroom Without Walls
Learning regularly extends beyond the school building. Our Lower Manhattan location gives students access to museums, parks, cultural institutions, historic sites, businesses, and public spaces that help make academic ideas more tangible.
Students in Grades 5–8 travel annually to Red Gate Farm for an overnight experience centered on nature, independence, shared responsibility, and community. In Middle School, international travel extends language and cultural learning further, giving students opportunities to experience new places, communicate in different settings, and navigate the world with growing confidence.
The program begins with Montessori principles in Nursery and Preschool. The International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme begins in Preschool 3 and continues through Grade 5, followed by the Middle Years Programme framework in Grades 6 through 8. Multilingual learning continues throughout the school journey.
It is both, at different stages of the program. Montessori provides the early childhood foundation, and the International Baccalaureate begins in Preschool 3 and continues through Elementary and Middle School.
Montessori helps young children develop independence, concentration, purposeful choice, and responsibility for their own learning. Those foundations support the transition into the IB, where students ask increasingly complex questions, make connections across subjects, and apply what they know.
The International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme begins in Preschool 3 and continues through Grade 5. Students then move into the Middle Years Programme framework for Grades 6 through 8.
Students investigate meaningful questions, gather information, test ideas, consider different perspectives, make connections across subjects, and communicate what they have learned. Teachers provide direct instruction when students need specific knowledge or skills, then create opportunities to apply that learning.
Pine Street School offers an academically rigorous program grounded in the internationally recognized International Baccalaureate framework. Students build strong subject knowledge in literacy, mathematics, science, social studies, languages, and the arts through direct instruction and increasingly challenging work. They are also expected to connect and apply that knowledge across disciplines.
For example, in the PYP Marketplace Unit of Inquiry, students calculate costs, set prices, manage budgets, make change, and track earnings in mathematics; write advertisements, product descriptions, and persuasive sales pitches in literacy; examine how markets work in social studies; and create products, logos, packaging, and displays through art and design.
In Middle School, this transdisciplinary foundation develops into more advanced interdisciplinary research and problem-solving through the MYP. Students analyze evidence, communicate their reasoning, and take increasing responsibility for complex, independent work.
This preparation is reflected in Pine Street School’s inaugural Grade 8 class, in which every student was admitted to their first-choice high school. Families can learn more about our high school preparation and placement outcomes.
Pine Street School uses multiple measures to understand what students know, how they think, and how well they can apply their learning. Teachers consider observations, conversations, written work, projects, presentations, performance tasks, rubrics, reading records, and student reflection.
Beginning in Kindergarten, students take MAP Growth, an adaptive, untimed assessment that measures progress in core academic areas and allows teachers to view growth in relation to national norms. Avant STAMP begins in Grade 3 to measure target-language proficiency, and the ERB Comprehensive Testing Program begins in Grade 4 to assess academic achievement and reasoning.
In Middle School, students are also assessed against clear, subject-specific MYP criteria and receive an Attitude and Application grade. Teachers review these results alongside daily classroom evidence so no single test defines a student’s progress.