NCES CCD 2024-25 7 schools IA

Best-Resourced Schools in Newton, IA

Compiled from official source data by .

7 public K-12 schools in Newton 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
7
Schools
2,937
Students
44.1/100
Avg Resource Index
14.2:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Compact, single-district system

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Newton has more public-school enrollment than 28% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Newton's 7 listed schools all sit inside one district, creating a compact governance structure with one budget, board, and reporting chain. That makes citywide comparisons cleaner than in places split across several districts, but it does not make the campuses interchangeable: elementary, middle, and high-school staffing needs differ. The ranked list is best read as variation inside one system rather than competition among separate local authorities.

The school portfolio is elementary-weighted

4 of Newton's 7 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 0 middle and 2 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.

A small portfolio contains radically different campus scales

Newton lists only 7 schools, yet reported enrollment runs from 51 to 806 students, a 16-fold range. In a portfolio this compact, the smallest record may be a specialized or nonstandard setting rather than a miniature version of the largest campus. That distinction affects how ratios and program fields should be read. Compare similarly configured grade levels first; combining the extremes into one city average conceals more than it explains.

City enrollment
Top 72%
School count
Top 65%
Resource Index average
66th percentile
Teacher staffing
65th percentile

Newton Senior High School accounts for 27.4% of all Newton public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Newton-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

Newton school enrollment varies 16× across entities

Newton school enrollment ranges from 51 students (lowest) to 806 students (highest), a spread of 755 students. That spread reflects typical urban portfolio variation between specialty programs and large neighbourhood schools. 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

Newton operates one school district — a single-district system

Newton'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

Newton student-teacher ratio is 14.2:1 — 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 Newton is typically wider than the Newton-aggregate figure suggests.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. West Academy Alternative School 68
2. Aurora Heights Elementary School 50
3. Woodrow Wilson Elementary School 45
4. Thomas Jefferson Elementary School 38
5. Newton Senior High School 37
6. Emerson Hough Elementary School 36
7. Berg Middle School 35

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Newton

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 Emerson Hough Elementary School 42.3/100
  2. 2 Woodrow Wilson Elementary School 36.2/100
  3. 3 Newton Senior High School 31.1/100
  4. 4 West Academy Alternative School 30.8/100
  5. 5 Berg Middle School 28.5/100

What do families ask about schools in Newton?

Which Newton school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

West Academy Alternative School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Newton schools in this federal-data comparison at 68/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Newton, IA? ▼

Newton has 7 public schools with a total enrollment of 2,937 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 14.2:1.

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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.