Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
11 public K-12 schools in Montclair 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, Montclair has more public-school enrollment than 72% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Montclair 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
8 of Montclair's 11 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 2 middle and 1 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.
High measured need meets a thin staffing ratio
Montclair's reporting schools show 72.5% free-lunch eligibility across measured enrollment, alongside an average 20.6:1 student-teacher ratio. These are separate constraints: one describes the economic context of enrolled students and the other compares student and teacher headcounts. The 22-point gap between Lehigh Elementary and Kingsley Elementary 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.
City enrollment
Top 28%
School count
Top 35%
Resource Index average
34th percentile
Teacher staffing
13th percentile
Montclair High accounts for 33.1% of all Montclair public-school enrollment
That dominant concentration means Montclair-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.
Montclair school enrollment varies 6.8× across entities
Montclair school enrollment ranges from 369 students (lowest) to 2,515 students (highest), a spread of 2,146 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.
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.
Montclair student-teacher ratio is 20.6:1 — 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 Montclair
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 Montclair school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Lehigh Elementary has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Montclair schools in this federal-data comparison at 51/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Montclair, CA? ▼
Montclair has 11 public schools with a total enrollment of 7,608 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 20.6:1.
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.
