Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
8 public K-12 schools in Arcadia 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, Arcadia has more public-school enrollment than 40% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Arcadia'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.
Combined-grade campuses shape the local portfolio
6 of Arcadia'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.
High measured need meets a thin staffing ratio
Arcadia's reporting schools show 69.5% free-lunch eligibility across measured enrollment, alongside an average 20.3:1 student-teacher ratio. These are separate constraints: one describes the economic context of enrolled students and the other compares student and teacher headcounts. The 23-point gap between West Elementary School and Desoto Secondary School is therefore more useful than the city mean alone. A school with a similar ratio may still report different counselor access, attendance, or gifted-program availability, so open the campus records before drawing conclusions about student support.
City enrollment
Top 60%
School count
Top 54%
Resource Index average
8th percentile
Teacher staffing
14th percentile
Desoto County High School accounts for 32.5% of all Arcadia public-school enrollment
That dominant concentration means Arcadia-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.
Arcadia school enrollment varies 405× across entities
Arcadia school enrollment ranges from 3 students (lowest) to 1,215 students (highest), a spread of 1,212 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.
The reported share sits between 62.5% and 75%, above a simple majority but below the highest descriptive band used here. Title I operates under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), but its statutory allocation uses additional LEA-level counts and rules not represented by this average. This percentage is an economic-need context measure; it does not establish a Title I award, show dollars received, or describe how funds are distributed among campuses.
Arcadia operates one school district — a single-district system
Arcadia'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.
Arcadia student-teacher ratio is 20.3:1 — 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.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Arcadia
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 Arcadia school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
West Elementary School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Arcadia schools in this federal-data comparison at 38/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Arcadia, FL? ▼
Arcadia has 8 public schools with a total enrollment of 3,736 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 20.3:1.
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.
