Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
5 public K-12 schools in Santa Ynez 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, Santa Ynez has more public-school enrollment than 3% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Santa Ynez Valley Union High enrolls 68.1% of Santa Ynez's public-school students. That is enough concentration for one institution to pull the citywide enrollment, staffing, and Resource Index averages toward its own profile. The smaller campuses below should therefore be compared directly rather than inferred from the headline mean; their grade configurations and program footprints can be materially different even inside the same district.
The school portfolio is elementary-weighted
3 of Santa Ynez's 5 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 0 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
Santa Ynez lists only 5 schools, yet reported enrollment runs from 11 to 801 students, a 73-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 97%
School count
Top 99%
Resource Index average
30th percentile
Teacher staffing
39th percentile
Santa Ynez Valley Union High accounts for 68.1% of all Santa Ynez public-school enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Santa Ynez a distant remainder — means Santa Ynez-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. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
Santa Ynez school enrollment varies 73× across entities
Santa Ynez school enrollment ranges from 11 students (lowest) to 801 students (highest), a spread of 790 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.
Santa Ynez student-teacher ratio is 16.4:1 — near the typical range (US average ~15.7) — citywide staffing is neither unusually lean nor unusually crowded by this measure
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 Variation between sub-units within Santa Ynez is typically wider than the Santa Ynez-aggregate figure suggests.
20% 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.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Santa Ynez
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 Santa Ynez school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Santa Ynez Elementary has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Santa Ynez schools in this federal-data comparison at 45/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Santa Ynez, CA? ▼
Santa Ynez has 5 public schools with a total enrollment of 1,176 students. 1 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 16.4:1.
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.
