NCES CCD 2024-25 6 schools AL

Best-Resourced Schools in Muscle Shoals, AL

Compiled from official source data by .

6 public K-12 schools in Muscle Shoals from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.

PlainSchools home → About this data
6
Schools
2,979
Students
35.5/100
Avg Resource Index
18.3:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Compact, single-district system

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Muscle Shoals has more public-school enrollment than 28% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Muscle Shoals's 6 listed schools all sit inside one district, creating a compact governance structure with one budget, board, and reporting chain. That makes citywide comparisons cleaner than in places split across several districts, but it does not make the campuses interchangeable: elementary, middle, and high-school staffing needs differ. The ranked list is best read as variation inside one system rather than competition among separate local authorities.

The school portfolio is elementary-weighted

3 of Muscle Shoals's 6 listed schools are elementary campuses. That composition means citywide enrollment and staffing averages are influenced more by early-grade operating patterns than by the city's 1 middle and 1 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.

Campus spread matters more than the city mean

The 17-point gap between Mcbride Elementary School and Muscle Shoals High School shows the range hidden by Muscle Shoals's average Resource Investment Index. The city figure is useful for national placement, but families ultimately choose among campuses with different grade spans, enrollment, district affiliations, and reported support fields. Start with schools serving the relevant grade level, then compare the index components rather than assuming the city average describes any one classroom.

City enrollment
Top 72%
School count
Top 79%
Resource Index average
27th percentile
Teacher staffing
24th percentile

Muscle Shoals High School accounts for 29.0% of all Muscle Shoals public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Muscle Shoals-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade level: High. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how districts allocate programs, capital, or staff. Enrollment-weighted aggregates give this entity more weight than any smaller peer, while an unweighted entity average treats every record equally.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data NCES Common Core of Data

Muscle Shoals school enrollment varies 3.7× across entities

Muscle Shoals school enrollment ranges from 234 students (lowest) to 864 students (highest), a spread of 630 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 NCES Common Core of Data

Muscle Shoals operates one school district — a single-district system

Muscle Shoals's listed schools share one district boundary, budget authority, and reporting chain. That makes citywide and districtwide governance easier to compare, but it does not make individual campuses uniform: grade configuration, staffing, programs, and student need can still vary materially within the same school district.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data NCES Common Core of Data

Muscle Shoals student-teacher ratio is 18.3:1 — high (typically associated with larger urban scale or staffing constraints that have widened the headcount gap)

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.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. Mcbride Elementary School 46
2. Muscle Shoals Middle School 38
3. Highland Park Elementary School 34
4. Webster Elementary School 34
5. Howell Graves Preschool 32
6. Muscle Shoals High School 29

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Muscle Shoals

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.

  1. 1 Muscle Shoals High School 55.7/100
  2. 2 Highland Park Elementary School 55.0/100
  3. 3 Webster Elementary School 54.5/100
  4. 4 Howell Graves Preschool 51.8/100
  5. 5 Muscle Shoals Middle School 50.5/100

What do families ask about schools in Muscle Shoals?

Which Muscle Shoals school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Mcbride Elementary School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Muscle Shoals schools in this federal-data comparison at 46/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Muscle Shoals, AL? ▼

Muscle Shoals has 6 public schools with a total enrollment of 2,979 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 18.3:1.

Other Cities in Alabama

Birmingham
59 schools
Mobile
57 schools
Montgomery
52 schools
Huntsville
47 schools
Tuscaloosa
23 schools
Decatur
20 schools

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.