NCES CCD 2024-25 14 schools DE

Best-Resourced Schools in New Castle, DE

Compiled from official source data by .

14 public K-12 schools in New Castle 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
14
Schools
8,311
Students
31.6/100
Avg Resource Index
12.5:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Lean reported-resource profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, New Castle has more public-school enrollment than 75% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. New Castle's average Resource Investment Index falls in the lower portion of the 4,487-city comparison set. The index is a resource snapshot, not an academic grade: it reflects the federal staffing, counselor, gifted-program, and attendance fields available for local campuses. The most useful next step is to open the individual schools below and identify which component is pulling each score down, because the same city average can hide very different campus-level constraints.

The school portfolio is elementary-weighted

8 of New Castle's 14 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 1 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.

The composite and staffing measures point in different directions

New Castle's average Resource Investment Index sits at the 16th percentile, while its teacher-staffing measure sits at the 84th percentile. The 68-point percentile gap is a reminder that the index is not a class-size score: counselors, gifted-program reporting, and attendance also affect it. Compare those components directly when two schools have similar index totals; the same headline score can arise from a different mix of reported resources.

City enrollment
Top 25%
School count
Top 25%
Resource Index average
16th percentile
Teacher staffing
84th percentile

Penn (William) High School accounts for 24.9% of all New Castle public-school enrollment

That concentration means New Castle-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.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

New Castle school enrollment varies 22× across entities

New Castle school enrollment ranges from 95 students (lowest) to 2,069 students (highest), a spread of 1,974 students. That spread is wider than typical and predicts noticeable gaps in service quality between the highest and lowest areas. 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

New Castle student-teacher ratio is 12.5:1 — low (typically associated with smaller schools or per-school staffing investment that often correlates with stronger per-student supports)

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 Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. The Colwyck Center 49
2. Wilmington Manor Elementary School 43
3. Penn (William) High School 37
4. New Castle Elementary School 36
5. Leach (John G.) School 36
6. Eisenberg (Harry O.) Elementary School 32
7. Read (George) Middle School 28
8. Mccullough (Calvin R. ) Middle School 28
9. Downie (Carrie) Elementary School 28
10. Charter School of New Castle 27
11. Southern Elementary School 27
12. Pleasantville Elementary School 27
13. Castle Hills Elementary School 23
14. Bedford (Gunning) Middle School 21

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in New Castle

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 Castle Hills Elementary School 72.2/100
  2. 2 Wilmington Manor Elementary School 71.1/100
  3. 3 Downie (Carrie) Elementary School 70.6/100
  4. 4 Read (George) Middle School 69.0/100
  5. 5 Pleasantville Elementary School 68.5/100

What do families ask about schools in New Castle?

Which New Castle school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

The Colwyck Center has the highest Resource Investment Index among the New Castle schools in this federal-data comparison at 49/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in New Castle, DE? ▼

New Castle has 14 public schools with a total enrollment of 8,311 students. 1 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 12.5:1.

Other Cities in Delaware

Wilmington
51 schools
Newark
28 schools
Dover
20 schools
Middletown
15 schools
Camden
8 schools
Georgetown
7 schools

Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in Delaware →

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.