NCES CCD 2024-25 8 schools CA

Best-Resourced Schools in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA

Compiled from official source data by .

8 public K-12 schools in Rancho Santa Margarita 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
8
Schools
4,710
Students
37.4/100
Avg Resource Index
23.6:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Middle-of-corpus city profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Rancho Santa Margarita has more public-school enrollment than 53% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Rancho Santa Margarita 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

6 of Rancho Santa Margarita's 8 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 0 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.

Campus spread matters more than the city mean

The 14-point gap between Melinda Heights Elementary and Cielo Vista Elementary shows the range hidden by Rancho Santa Margarita's average Resource Investment Index. The city figure is useful for national placement, but families ultimately choose among campuses with different grade spans, enrollment, district affiliations, and reported support fields. Start with schools serving the relevant grade level, then compare the index components rather than assuming the city average describes any one classroom.

City enrollment
Top 47%
School count
Top 54%
Resource Index average
34th percentile
Teacher staffing
4th percentile

Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate accounts for 24.5% of all Rancho Santa Margarita public-school enrollment

That concentration means Rancho Santa Margarita-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade level: Middle. 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 NCES Common Core of Data

Rancho Santa Margarita school enrollment varies 3.7× across entities

Rancho Santa Margarita school enrollment ranges from 315 students (lowest) to 1,153 students (highest), a spread of 838 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 NCES Common Core of Data

Rancho Santa Margarita student-teacher ratio is 23.6:1 — 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.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. Melinda Heights Elementary 44
2. Trabuco Mesa Elementary 44
3. Tijeras Creek Elementary 43
4. Arroyo Vista Elementary 37
5. Arroyo Vista Middle 35
6. Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate 34
7. Las Flores Elementary 32
8. Cielo Vista Elementary 30

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Rancho Santa Margarita

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 Trabuco Mesa Elementary 68.6/100
  2. 2 Rancho Santa Margarita Intermediate 68.5/100
  3. 3 Tijeras Creek Elementary 66.3/100
  4. 4 Las Flores Elementary 65.6/100
  5. 5 Melinda Heights Elementary 65.1/100

What do families ask about schools in Rancho Santa Margarita?

Which Rancho Santa Margarita school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Melinda Heights Elementary has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Rancho Santa Margarita schools in this federal-data comparison at 44/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Rancho Santa Margarita, CA? ▼

Rancho Santa Margarita has 8 public schools with a total enrollment of 4,710 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 23.6:1.

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.