NCES CCD 2024-25 11 schools IA

Best-Resourced Schools in Cedar Falls, IA

Compiled from official source data by .

11 public K-12 schools in Cedar Falls 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
11
Schools
5,897
Students
51.7/100
Avg Resource Index
14.4:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Middle-of-corpus city profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Cedar Falls has more public-school enrollment than 62% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Cedar Falls 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

10 of Cedar Falls's 11 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.

One district, but meaningful resource variation

Cedar Falls's schools share one district authority while their average Resource Investment Index ranks at the 91st percentile among listed cities. Shared governance removes one source of policy variation, but it does not erase campus differences by grade span or enrollment. The 26-point gap between Cedar Falls Virtual Campus and Helen a Hansen Elementary School measures the remaining local spread. Use the district-level picture for common budget context, then compare the school components to see whether staffing, counseling, gifted-program reporting, or attendance accounts for each campus's position.

City enrollment
Top 38%
School count
Top 35%
Resource Index average
91st percentile
Teacher staffing
62nd percentile

Cedar Falls High School accounts for 22.6% of all Cedar Falls public-school enrollment

That concentration means Cedar Falls-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

Cedar Falls school enrollment varies 30× across entities

Cedar Falls school enrollment ranges from 44 students (lowest) to 1,333 students (highest), a spread of 1,289 students. That ratio is among the widest observed and reflects extreme heterogeneity inside a single city, with small specialty programs listed alongside large comprehensive campuses. 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

Cedar Falls operates one school district — a single-district system

Cedar Falls'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

Cedar Falls student-teacher ratio is 14.4:1 — near the typical range (US average ~15.7) — citywide staffing is neither unusually lean nor unusually crowded by this measure

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 Variation between sub-units within Cedar Falls is typically wider than the Cedar Falls-aggregate figure suggests.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. Cedar Falls Virtual Campus 70
2. North Cedar Elementary School 58
3. Cedar Falls High School 53
4. Peet Junior High School 53
5. Bess Streeter Aldrich Elementary 50
6. Orchard Hill Elementary School 50
7. Southdale Elementary School 49
8. Holmes Junior High School 48
9. Lincoln Elementary School 48
10. Cedar Heights Elementary School 46
11. Helen a Hansen Elementary School 44

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Cedar Falls

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 North Cedar Elementary School 40.8/100
  2. 2 Cedar Heights Elementary School 39.0/100
  3. 3 Orchard Hill Elementary School 38.1/100
  4. 4 Lincoln Elementary School 36.2/100
  5. 5 Southdale Elementary School 35.3/100

What do families ask about schools in Cedar Falls?

Which Cedar Falls school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Cedar Falls Virtual Campus has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Cedar Falls schools in this federal-data comparison at 70/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Cedar Falls, IA? ▼

Cedar Falls has 11 public schools with a total enrollment of 5,897 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 14.4:1.

Other Cities in Iowa

Des Moines
64 schools
Cedar Rapids
42 schools
Davenport
26 schools
Sioux City
22 schools
Dubuque
18 schools
Ankeny
17 schools

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

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.