NCES CCD 2024-25 9 schools KY

Best-Resourced Schools in Benton, KY

Compiled from official source data by .

9 public K-12 schools in Benton 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
9
Schools
3,521
Students
52.6/100
Avg Resource Index
16.4:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Middle-of-corpus city profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Benton has more public-school enrollment than 37% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Benton 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

7 of Benton's 9 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.

A small portfolio contains radically different campus scales

Benton lists only 9 schools, yet reported enrollment runs from 22 to 1,201 students, a 55-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 63%
School count
Top 46%
Resource Index average
92nd percentile
Teacher staffing
39th percentile

Marshall County High School accounts for 34.1% of all Benton public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Benton-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

Benton school enrollment varies 55× across entities

Benton school enrollment ranges from 22 students (lowest) to 1,201 students (highest), a spread of 1,179 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

Benton operates one school district — a single-district system

Benton'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

Benton student-teacher ratio is 16.4:1 — 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 Benton is typically wider than the Benton-aggregate figure suggests.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. South Marshall Elementary School 59
2. Sharpe Elementary School 58
3. Jonathan Elementary School 57
4. South Marshall Middle 55
5. Purchase Youth Village 55
6. Marshall County High School 50
7. Mc Academy 48
8. Central Elementary School 46
9. Benton Elementary School 45

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Benton

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 Purchase Youth Village 31.4/100
  2. 2 Jonathan Elementary School 24.1/100
  3. 3 Benton Elementary School 17.7/100
  4. 4 Sharpe Elementary School 17.6/100
  5. 5 South Marshall Middle 16.0/100

What do families ask about schools in Benton?

Which Benton school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

South Marshall Elementary School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Benton schools in this federal-data comparison at 59/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Benton, KY? ▼

Benton has 9 public schools with a total enrollment of 3,521 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 16.4:1.

Other Cities in Kentucky

Louisville
158 schools
Lexington
74 schools
Bowling Green
36 schools
Owensboro
31 schools
Ashland
18 schools
Elizabethtown
17 schools

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

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.