59 public K-12 schools in Birmingham from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.
National city placement
According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Birmingham has more public-school enrollment than 96% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Birmingham is among the largest city school systems in this directory by enrollment, but its campuses are divided among 6 districts. That combination matters: citywide averages blend separate budgets, staffing policies, attendance boundaries, and program rules. For a family comparing schools here, the district column is as important as the city average; two nearby campuses may answer to different boards and draw on different F-33 funding pools.
39 of Birmingham's 59 listed schools use NCES's combined or “other” grade-level classification. Citywide averages therefore blend campuses serving unusually broad or nonstandard grade spans with conventional elementary, middle, and high schools. Grade configuration is a first-order comparison here, not a minor label.
Birmingham's reporting schools show 66.2% free-lunch eligibility across measured enrollment, alongside an average 18.8:1 student-teacher ratio. These are separate constraints: one describes the economic context of enrolled students and the other compares student and teacher headcounts. The 49-point gap between Jefferson County Virtual School and Parker High School is therefore more useful than the city mean alone. A school with a similar ratio may still report different counselor access, attendance, or gifted-program availability, so open the campus records before drawing conclusions about student support.
Birmingham school enrollment ranges from 184 students (lowest) to 1,648 students (highest), a spread of 1,464 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous school portfolio for a city this size. Per-school staffing and program breadth can differ sharply at opposite ends of that enrollment range, so the city average should not be treated as a typical campus.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
The reported share sits between 62.5% and 75%, above a simple majority but below the highest descriptive band used here. Title I operates under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), but its statutory allocation uses additional LEA-level counts and rules not represented by this average. This percentage is an economic-need context measure; it does not establish a Title I award, show dollars received, or describe how funds are distributed among campuses.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Each school district has independent budgeting, hiring, and service delivery authority. The fragmentation reflects historical patterns of inter-municipal boundary lines that pre-date modern city growth, students in different parts of the same city can attend different districts with different per-pupil spending, calendars, and graduation requirements. Per-region variation is largest in fragmented systems because each school district sets its own budget, contracts, and priorities without higher-level coordination above the regulatory floor.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
student-teacher ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: the ratio counts FTE classroom teachers against total enrollment, push-in specialists, English-language aides, special-education co-teachers, and counselors are not included in most reporting Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
Showing top 50 of 59 schools.
Ranked by the Simpson student-body diversity index (0-100) from NCES race and ethnicity data, where higher means a more evenly mixed student body. It measures mix, not quality.
Jefferson County Virtual School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Birmingham schools in this federal-data comparison at 60/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
Birmingham has 59 public schools with a total enrollment of 30,722 students. 4 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 18.8:1.
Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in Alabama →
Data from NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 and Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) 2021-22. The Resource Investment Index uses reported student-teacher ratio, counselor access, gifted programs, and attendance; it is not an academic rating. Cities must include at least five schools to be listed. This public-data comparison is for informational purposes: verify current enrollment, attendance boundaries, and programs with the school district before acting. See the guide to understanding NCES data.
