School and School District Size

Primary schools tended to be smaller than middle and high schools (table 5). The average number of students in a primary school was 441 in 2001-02. Middle schools served, on the average, 612 students each, while the average-size high school had 753 students. There was considerable range in school size across the states. High schools ranged from an average of fewer than 300 students in Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota to more than 1,500 students in Florida.

Student/teacher ratios were higher in primary schools, which had a median number of 16.0 students for each teacher, than in middle or high schools, which had a median number of 15.7 and 15.1 students per teacher, respectively (table 6). (The median is the point at which half the schools had larger student/teacher ratios and half had smaller. Note also that student/teacher ratio is not the same as average class size, since not all teachers are assigned to a classroom.) The median number of primary students for each teacher ranged from a low of fewer than 13.0 in Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming to a high of 21.5 in Utah.

Twenty-five school districts enrolled 100,000 or more students, while 1,692 districts served fewer than 150 students (table 7). While few in number, the larger districts included a considerable portion of the students in America's schools. Although less than 2 percent of school districts reported 25,000 or more students, one-third (33 percent) of students attended school in these districts. At the other end of the size range, more than one-third of school districts had fewer than 600 students, but these districts accounted for only 3 percent of public school enrollment.

Tables A-1 through A-5 provide more detailed information about the distribution of schools and school districts by membership size.