21 public K-12 schools in Ellicott City 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, Ellicott City has more public-school enrollment than 90% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Ellicott City lands in the upper national tier on both the average Resource Investment Index and teacher staffing intensity. Those measures come from different inputs: the index combines reported counselors, gifted access, attendance, and staffing, while the staffing percentile compares the city's student-teacher ratio directly. Agreement across both measures is stronger evidence of broad reported capacity than either score alone, though neither is a test-score rating or a guarantee about an individual classroom.
Ellicott City's list includes 5 elementary, 6 middle, and 3 high-school campuses, plus 7 combined-grade records. The city average spans every major grade stage, so the ranked table is more informative when read within level than as one interchangeable queue.
Ellicott City's schools share one district authority while their average Resource Investment Index ranks at the 87th 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 21-point gap between Homewood School and Hollifield Station Elementary 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.
Ellicott City school enrollment ranges from 109 students (lowest) to 1,493 students (highest), a spread of 1,384 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
Ellicott City'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 Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.
| # | School | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Homewood School | 62 |
| 2. | Ellicott Mills Middle | 60 |
| 3. | Burleigh Manor Middle School | 59 |
| 4. | Patapsco Middle | 54 |
| 5. | Howard High | 52 |
| 6. | Dunloggin Middle | 52 |
| 7. | Worthington Elementary | 51 |
| 8. | Mount Hebron High | 50 |
| 9. | Centennial High | 50 |
| 10. | Manor Woods Elementary | 50 |
| 11. | Waverly Elementary | 49 |
| 12. | Centennial Lane Elementary | 49 |
| 13. | Triadelphia Ridge Elementary | 49 |
| 14. | Bonnie Branch Middle | 48 |
| 15. | Folly Quarter Middle | 48 |
| 16. | Veterans Elementary | 47 |
| 17. | Ilchester Elementary | 47 |
| 18. | Northfield Elementary | 45 |
| 19. | St. Johns Lane Elementary | 45 |
| 20. | Bellows Spring Elementary | 42 |
| 21. | Hollifield Station Elementary | 41 |
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.
Homewood School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Ellicott City schools in this federal-data comparison at 62/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
Ellicott City has 21 public schools with a total enrollment of 16,166 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 13.5:1.
Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in Maryland →
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.
