18 public K-12 schools in Pine Bluff 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, Pine Bluff has more public-school enrollment than 61% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Pine Bluff sits in the broad middle of the national city distribution rather than at a single obvious extreme. Its scale, average Resource Investment Index, and staffing position need to be read together: a middle placement on one measure does not cancel a stronger or weaker result on another. The percentile panel makes those dimensions explicit, and the school table shows where the city aggregate breaks into materially different campus profiles.
9 of Pine Bluff's 18 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 3 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.
94.1% of enrollment in reporting Pine Bluff schools is eligible for free lunch, while the city list spans 4 districts. That pairing makes a citywide average especially easy to misread: the need measure follows students, but staffing decisions, calendars, program rules, and federal allocations are administered through separate district structures. The 81-point gap between Friendship Aspire Academy Southeast Pine Bluff and Friendship Aspire Academy Downtown Pine Bluff shows how much reported resource capacity can vary inside the same municipal label. Compare schools within the same district first, then use the city view to see how those local systems differ.
Pine Bluff school enrollment ranges from 63 students (lowest) to 688 students (highest), a spread of 625 students. That spread reflects typical urban portfolio variation between specialty programs and large neighbourhood schools. 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 is above 87.5%, so economic need is widespread across the measured student population. 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
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 Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.
28% of the city's listed public-school campuses are reported as charter schools in NCES CCD. Charter status identifies a different governance arrangement; it does not establish admissions availability, academic quality, or the share of city students enrolled in those campuses. Open each school record to compare enrollment and staffing directly.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
| # | School | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Friendship Aspire Academy Southeast Pine Bluff | 83 |
| 2. | Thirty-Fourth Ave. Elem. Sch. | 65 |
| 3. | Pine Bluff Lighthouse Middle School Academy | 59 |
| 4. | Pine Bluff Lighthouse Elementary Academy | 58 |
| 5. | Forrest Park Prep Preschool | 57 |
| 6. | Robert F Morehead Middle School | 55 |
| 7. | Watson Chapel Jr. High School | 53 |
| 8. | Dollarway High School | 51 |
| 9. | Watson Chapel High School | 46 |
| 10. | Coleman Elementary School | 45 |
| 11. | Pine Bluff High School | 44 |
| 12. | Jack Robey Jr. High School | 41 |
| 13. | Friendship Aspire Academy | 40 |
| 14. | Broadmoor Elementary School | 38 |
| 15. | Matthews Elementary School | 36 |
| 16. | Edgewood Elementary School | 35 |
| 17. | L. L. Owen Elementary School | 34 |
| 18. | Friendship Aspire Academy Downtown Pine Bluff | 2 |
Friendship Aspire Academy Southeast Pine Bluff has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Pine Bluff schools in this federal-data comparison at 83/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
Pine Bluff has 18 public schools with a total enrollment of 5,681 students. 5 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 13.2:1.
Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in Arkansas →
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.
