Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
10 public K-12 schools in Brea from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.
According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Brea has more public-school enrollment than 61% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Brea's average Resource Investment Index ranks above most listed cities even though its student-teacher ratio is on the more crowded side of the national city distribution. That is a useful mismatch, not a contradiction: counselor access, gifted programs, and attendance can lift the composite while classroom staffing remains comparatively tight. Families should inspect the component scores on each school profile instead of reading the city index as a shorthand for small classes.
The school portfolio is elementary-weighted
7 of Brea's 10 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 2 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.
A small portfolio contains radically different campus scales
Brea lists only 10 schools, yet reported enrollment runs from 13 to 1,676 students, a 129-fold range. In a portfolio this compact, the smallest record may be a specialized or nonstandard setting rather than a miniature version of the largest campus. That distinction affects how ratios and program fields should be read. Compare similarly configured grade levels first; combining the extremes into one city average conceals more than it explains.
City enrollment
Top 39%
School count
Top 41%
Resource Index average
82nd percentile
Teacher staffing
17th percentile
Brea Olinda High accounts for 29.2% of all Brea public-school enrollment
That dominant concentration means Brea-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.
Brea school enrollment varies 129× across entities
Brea school enrollment ranges from 13 students (lowest) to 1,676 students (highest), a spread of 1,663 students. That ratio is an extreme outlier spread — among the widest gaps observed anywhere in this dataset. 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.
Brea operates one school district — a single-district system
Brea'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.
Brea student-teacher ratio is 19.7:1 — 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.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Brea
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.
Which Brea school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Brea Canyon High (Continuation) has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Brea schools in this federal-data comparison at 79/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Brea, CA? ▼
Brea has 10 public schools with a total enrollment of 5,740 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 19.7:1.
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.
