36 public K-12 schools in Petaluma 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, Petaluma has more public-school enrollment than 83% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Petaluma 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.
25 of Petaluma's 36 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 3 middle and 5 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.
12 of 36 listed Petaluma campuses are reported as charters, so district-run and charter records occupy substantial shares of the same city view. They may follow different governance, enrollment, and program structures even when their mailing city matches. The 59-point gap between San Antonio High (Continuation) and River Montessori Elementary Charter should be read within that context, not as a single-system league table. Check charter status and district affiliation before comparing two nearby schools, and verify current admissions rules with the operator.
Petaluma school enrollment ranges from 7 students (lowest) to 1,653 students (highest), a spread of 1,646 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.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Each school district has independent budgeting, hiring, and service delivery authority, and the sheer count here puts it in the extreme tail of fragmentation nationally. The fragmentation reflects historical patterns of inter-municipal boundary lines that pre-date modern city growth, students in different parts of the same city can attend different districts with different per-pupil spending, calendars, and graduation requirements. Per-region variation is largest in fragmented systems because each school district sets its own budget, contracts, and priorities without higher-level coordination above the regulatory floor.
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
33% 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
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.
San Antonio High (Continuation) has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Petaluma schools in this federal-data comparison at 72/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
Petaluma has 36 public schools with a total enrollment of 11,209 students. 12 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 21.5:1.
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.
