NCES CCD 2024-25 17 schools KY

Best-Resourced Schools in Paducah, KY

Compiled from official source data by .

17 public K-12 schools in Paducah 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
17
Schools
8,880
Students
47.8/100
Avg Resource Index
16.4:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Middle-of-corpus city profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Paducah has more public-school enrollment than 77% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Paducah 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 Paducah's 17 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.

The composite and staffing measures point in different directions

Paducah's average Resource Investment Index sits at the 80th percentile, while its teacher-staffing measure sits at the 39th percentile. The 41-point percentile gap is a reminder that the index is not a class-size score: counselors, gifted-program reporting, and attendance also affect it. Compare those components directly when two schools have similar index totals; the same headline score can arise from a different mix of reported resources.

City enrollment
Top 23%
School count
Top 19%
Resource Index average
80th percentile
Teacher staffing
39th percentile

Mccracken County High School accounts for 21.2% of all Paducah public-school enrollment

That concentration means Paducah-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

Paducah school enrollment varies 61× across entities

Paducah school enrollment ranges from 31 students (lowest) to 1,882 students (highest), a spread of 1,851 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

Paducah reports 55.9% free-lunch eligibility

The reported share clears the 50% majority mark. Title I operates under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), but its statutory allocation uses additional LEA-level counts and rules not represented by this average. This percentage is an economic-need context measure; it does not establish a Title I award, show dollars received, or describe how funds are distributed among campuses.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

Paducah 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 Paducah is typically wider than the Paducah-aggregate figure suggests.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. Reidland Intermediate School 60
2. Lone Oak Middle School 53
3. Paducah Head Start Preschool 53
4. Choices Educational Center 51
5. Morgan Elementary School 50
6. Paducah Middle School 49
7. Lone Oak Intermediate School 49
8. Reidland Middle School 48
9. Mcnabb Elementary School 48
10. Mccracken County High School 47
11. Clark Elementary School 47
12. Reidland Elementary School 46
13. Paducah Tilghman High School 45
14. Concord Elementary School 44
15. Hendron Lone Oak Elementary School 44
16. Lone Oak Elementary School 43
17. Mccracken Regional School 35

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Paducah

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 Morgan Elementary School 68.1/100
  2. 2 Paducah Head Start Preschool 67.6/100
  3. 3 Paducah Middle School 66.4/100
  4. 4 Paducah Tilghman High School 65.7/100
  5. 5 Clark Elementary School 61.1/100

What do families ask about schools in Paducah?

Which Paducah school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Reidland Intermediate School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Paducah schools in this federal-data comparison at 60/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Paducah, KY? ▼

Paducah has 17 public schools with a total enrollment of 8,880 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.