15 public K-12 schools in Decatur 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, Decatur has more public-school enrollment than 73% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Decatur'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.
8 of Decatur's 15 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 1 middle and 2 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.
The 23-point gap between Stephen Decatur Middle School and Franklin Grove Elem School shows the range hidden by Decatur'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.
Decatur school enrollment ranges from 313 students (lowest) to 1,059 students (highest), a spread of 746 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.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Decatur'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.
| # | School | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Stephen Decatur Middle School | 33 |
| 2. | Johns Hill Magnet School | 30 |
| 3. | Montessori Academy for Peace | 29 |
| 4. | Macarthur High School | 25 |
| 5. | South Shores Elem School | 21 |
| 6. | Parsons Elementary School | 20 |
| 7. | Muffley Elem School | 19 |
| 8. | Michael E Baum Elem School | 17 |
| 9. | Eisenhower High School | 16 |
| 10. | Dennis Lab School | 16 |
| 11. | Robertson Charter School | 16 |
| 12. | Hope Academy | 15 |
| 13. | American Dreamer Stem Academy | 15 |
| 14. | Pershing Early Learning Center | 15 |
| 15. | Franklin Grove Elem School | 10 |
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.
Stephen Decatur Middle School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Decatur schools in this federal-data comparison at 33/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
Decatur has 15 public schools with a total enrollment of 7,840 students. 1 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 21.6:1.
Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in Illinois →
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.
