36 public K-12 schools in Panama City from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.
National city placement
According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Panama City has more public-school enrollment than 91% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Panama City 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.
22 of Panama City's 36 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.
12 of 36 listed Panama City campuses are reported as charters, so district-run and charter records occupy substantial shares of the same city view. They may follow different governance, enrollment, and program structures even when their mailing city matches. The 76-point gap between Bay Virtual Instruction Program (District Provided) and Oscar Patterson Academy should be read within that context, not as a single-system league table. Check charter status and district affiliation before comparing two nearby schools, and verify current admissions rules with the operator.
Panama City school enrollment ranges from 2 students (lowest) to 1,690 students (highest), a spread of 1,688 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.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Panama City'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.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
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.
33% 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.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
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.
Bay Virtual Instruction Program (District Provided) has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Panama City schools in this federal-data comparison at 76/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
Panama City has 36 public schools with a total enrollment of 17,431 students. 12 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 19.2:1.
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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.
