NCES CCD 2024-25 11 schools MA

Best-Resourced Schools in Arlington, MA

Compiled from official source data by .

11 public K-12 schools in Arlington 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
6,113
Students
47.9/100
Avg Resource Index
12.5:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Broad resource and staffing advantage

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Arlington has more public-school enrollment than 64% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Arlington 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.

The school portfolio is elementary-weighted

7 of Arlington's 11 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 2 middle and 1 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.

One district, but meaningful resource variation

Arlington's schools share one district authority while their average Resource Investment Index ranks at the 81st 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 18-point gap between Ottoson Middle and Cyrus E Dallin 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 36%
School count
Top 35%
Resource Index average
81st percentile
Teacher staffing
84th percentile

Arlington High accounts for 27.4% of all Arlington public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Arlington-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

Arlington school enrollment varies 17× across entities

Arlington school enrollment ranges from 100 students (lowest) to 1,677 students (highest), a spread of 1,577 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

Arlington operates one school district — a single-district system

Arlington'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

Arlington student-teacher ratio is 12.5:1 — low (typically associated with smaller schools or per-school staffing investment that often correlates with stronger per-student supports)

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.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, Public School Universe

# School Score
1. Ottoson Middle 56
2. Gibbs School 56
3. Peirce 52
4. M Norcross Stratton 50
5. Hardy 49
6. Thompson 48
7. Menotomy Preschool 48
8. Arlington High 44
9. Brackett 44
10. John a Bishop 42
11. Cyrus E Dallin 38

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Arlington

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 Menotomy Preschool 70.4/100
  2. 2 M Norcross Stratton 63.3/100
  3. 3 Thompson 59.0/100
  4. 4 Peirce 57.7/100
  5. 5 Hardy 57.2/100

What do families ask about schools in Arlington?

Which Arlington school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Ottoson Middle has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Arlington schools in this federal-data comparison at 56/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Arlington, MA? ▼

Arlington has 11 public schools with a total enrollment of 6,113 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 12.5:1.

Other Cities in Massachusetts

Springfield
71 schools
Worcester
49 schools
Dorchester
29 schools
Lawrence
29 schools
Lowell
29 schools
Lynn
28 schools

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

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.