NCES CCD 2024-25 9 schools CA

Best-Resourced Schools in Lake Forest, CA

Compiled from official source data by .

9 public K-12 schools in Lake Forest 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
9
Schools
6,971
Students
41.3/100
Avg Resource Index
23.2:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Middle-of-corpus city profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Lake Forest has more public-school enrollment than 69% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Lake Forest 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.

The school portfolio is elementary-weighted

7 of Lake Forest's 9 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.

The composite and staffing measures point in different directions

Lake Forest's average Resource Investment Index sits at the 52nd percentile, while its teacher-staffing measure sits at the 5th percentile. The 47-point percentile gap is a reminder that the index is not a class-size score: counselors, gifted-program reporting, and attendance also affect it. Compare those components directly when two schools have similar index totals; the same headline score can arise from a different mix of reported resources.

City enrollment
Top 31%
School count
Top 46%
Resource Index average
52nd percentile
Teacher staffing
5th percentile

El Toro High accounts for 27.3% of all Lake Forest public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Lake Forest-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

Lake Forest school enrollment varies 4.8× across entities

Lake Forest school enrollment ranges from 396 students (lowest) to 1,902 students (highest), a spread of 1,506 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

Lake Forest student-teacher ratio is 23.2:1 — 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

1 of Lake Forest's 9 listed schools are charters

11% 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. Rancho Canada Elementary 46
2. La Madera Elementary 46
3. Santiago Steam Magnet Elementary 44
4. Serrano Intermediate 43
5. Ralph a. Gates Dli Magnet Elementary 41
6. Oxford Preparatory Academy - Saddleback Valley 41
7. Lake Forest Elementary 40
8. El Toro High 39
9. Olivewood Elementary 32

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Lake Forest

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 Oxford Preparatory Academy - Saddleback Valley 71.3/100
  2. 2 Rancho Canada Elementary 70.8/100
  3. 3 La Madera Elementary 70.7/100
  4. 4 Santiago Steam Magnet Elementary 69.8/100
  5. 5 Serrano Intermediate 67.6/100

What do families ask about schools in Lake Forest?

Which Lake Forest school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Rancho Canada Elementary has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Lake Forest 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 Lake Forest, CA? ▼

Lake Forest has 9 public schools with a total enrollment of 6,971 students. 1 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 23.2:1.

Other Cities in California

Los Angeles
574 schools
San Diego
284 schools
San Jose
234 schools
Sacramento
197 schools
Fresno
180 schools
Bakersfield
146 schools

Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in California →

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.