Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
8 public K-12 schools in Wheat Ridge 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, Wheat Ridge has more public-school enrollment than 36% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Wheat Ridge 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.
Combined-grade campuses shape the local portfolio
5 of Wheat Ridge's 8 listed schools use NCES's combined or “other” grade-level classification. Citywide averages therefore blend campuses serving unusually broad or nonstandard grade spans with conventional elementary, middle, and high schools. Grade configuration is a first-order comparison here, not a minor label.
Campus spread matters more than the city mean
The 23-point gap between Prospect Valley Elementary School and Peak Expeditionary - Pennington shows the range hidden by Wheat Ridge'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 64%
School count
Top 54%
Resource Index average
34th percentile
Teacher staffing
18th percentile
Wheat Ridge High School accounts for 26.9% of all Wheat Ridge public-school enrollment
That concentration means Wheat Ridge-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.
Wheat Ridge school enrollment varies 4.8× across entities
Wheat Ridge school enrollment ranges from 195 students (lowest) to 932 students (highest), a spread of 737 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.
Wheat Ridge operates one school district — a single-district system
Wheat Ridge's listed schools share one district boundary, budget authority, and reporting chain. That makes citywide and districtwide governance easier to compare, but it does not make individual campuses uniform: grade configuration, staffing, programs, and student need can still vary materially within the same school district.
Wheat Ridge student-teacher ratio is 19.3:1 — 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.
13% 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 Wheat Ridge
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.
What do families ask about schools in Wheat Ridge?
Which Wheat Ridge school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Prospect Valley Elementary School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Wheat Ridge 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 Wheat Ridge, CO? ▼
Wheat Ridge has 8 public schools with a total enrollment of 3,469 students. 1 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 19.3:1.
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.
