Irvine Hebrew Day School (IHDS)

Irvine Hebrew Day School does not publish entrance exam requirements; contact admissions.

The school publishes the following application details. The home page of the school website notes that open enrollment is under way for both the current school year and the 2026-2027 school year, and encourages families to apply early to secure a place. The process: schedule a campus visit, where families can meet teachers and see classrooms and the school can also connect them with current parents; submit the application online with a nonrefundable $100 application fee; send the confidential Teacher Recommendation Form link to the child’s current teacher, who generally submits it within two weeks of the application; sign an Authorization to Release Confidential Information, which the school uses to contact teachers at the previous school and request records; and the school reviews transcripts, the teacher recommendation and other materials to complete its evaluation. The process described on the school website includes no written or standardized test. Families who need financial aid apply separately through FACTS.

The website does not state an entrance test requirement, so ask the admissions office whether a test is needed, and which one, before you start preparing. Application dates are set by the school each year; ask the admissions office for the current calendar and plan backward from it.

Irvine Hebrew Day School tuition for 2026-27 is $23,000 to $23,500.

Base tuition for the 2026-2027 school year: $23,000 for TK and kindergarten and $23,500 for grades 1-6. Both levels carry additional enrollment fees of $1,175 (school website, Tuition and Financial Aid page)

The enrollment fee is $1,175. In earlier years the school published a breakdown of a $500 materials fee, a $250 security fee and a $250 facilities fee, but only the $1,175 total could be verified on the current page of the school website. The application fee is $100 and is nonrefundable (school website, Admissions page). Lunch, transportation and after-school care are all charged separately, and the school website lists no prices. International student tuition is not listed on the school website.

Financial aid: Financial aid is administered by the school, which describes the process on the school website as standardized in the interest of fairness between families and encourages open communication with families. Applications are submitted through the FACTS platform; the Tuition and Financial Aid page on the school website has a Financial Aid Application link pointing to online.factsmgt.com/aid. Families may also contact the finance committee directly at finance@irvinehebrewday.org. The school website does not publish award ranges, the share of families receiving aid, or an application deadline.

Academics and programs described on the Irvine Hebrew Day School website include:

• Hebrew immersion, currently offered in TK and kindergarten, which the school website says will expand grade by grade (school website, Why IHDS page)
• Text-based Jewish education, taught primarily from the Torah and Jewish source texts in the original, paired with experiential learning around the Jewish holidays (school website, Why IHDS and Academics pages)
• Positive Discipline, with the school listed as one of the Lab Schools on positivediscipline.org (school website, Academics page and home page external link)
• General Studies covers language arts, mathematics, science, technology and social studies, integrated across disciplines (school website, Academics page)
• Reading and Writing Workshop as the approach to language arts (school website, Academics page)
• Daily classroom meetings and democratic deliberation, tied to the civics content in social studies (school website, Academics page)

These are the schools nearest to Irvine Hebrew Day School at the same level, with the basic facts each school publishes. Select a name to open that school’s admissions guide:

School	Grades	Tuition	Entrance test	Distance
Irvine Hebrew Day School	K-6	$23,000	—	—
Saint Jeanne de Lestonnac Catholic School – Tustin	K-8	Not published	—	1.3 mi
Holy Family Catholic School	K-8	$9,365	On-campus assessment	1.5 mi
St. John’s Lutheran School	K-8	$9,410	On-campus assessment	1.9 mi
St. Anne Parish School	K-8	Not published	On-campus assessment	2.4 mi

Irvine Hebrew Day School tuition for 2026-27 is tiered by grade or program, from $23,000 to $23,500. Over 7 years covering grades K-6, total tuition falls between $161,000 and $164,500, depending on which tier each grade falls in; ask the school for its grade-by-grade tuition table. This uses current-year rates and excludes registration fees, deposits, uniforms and activity fees; the school sets tuition for later years annually.

These are straight-line distances to Irvine Hebrew Day School from neighborhoods where many Irvine families live. Actual drive times will be longer; time the drive once during school hours:

Neighborhood	Straight-line distance
Woodbury	7.2 miles
Northwood	5.8 miles
Turtle Rock	8.8 miles
Portola Springs	8.6 miles

The school runs bus service.

When you visit Irvine Hebrew Day School, confirm these points with the admissions office:

• Accreditation — the partner and accreditation logo area in the footer of the home page on the school website links out to acswasc.org (ACS WASC) and prizmah.org (Prizmah, the center for Jewish day schools), but noth…
• Year founded — the Mission Statement, Why IHDS and Academics pages on the school website give no founding year
• Enrollment — the school website publishes no enrollment figure, so the California Department of Education filing of 74 is used; the state page does not note which school year it refers to
• Composition of the enrollment fee in the tuition note — the current Tuition page on the school website lists only the $1,175 total and gives no breakdown. An older version of the school’s page broke it into a $500 materials fee, a $250 security fee and a …
• Registration, technology, uniform and activity fees beyond tuition

EDUBUS counselors in Irvine work in both Chinese and English with families applying to Irvine Hebrew Day School. We track Irvine Hebrew Day School (IHDS)’s admissions calendar, prepare students for the campus visit and interview, and review application materials before they are submitted. Book a school-selection consultation or read the Chinese version of this page.