Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
9 public K-12 schools in Brainerd from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.
According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Brainerd has more public-school enrollment than 35% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Brainerd Senior High enrolls 52.6% of Brainerd's public-school students. That is enough concentration for one institution to pull the citywide enrollment, staffing, and Resource Index averages toward its own profile. The smaller campuses below should therefore be compared directly rather than inferred from the headline mean; their grade configurations and program footprints can be materially different even inside the same district.
The school portfolio is elementary-weighted
5 of Brainerd's 9 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 1 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
Brainerd lists only 9 schools, yet reported enrollment runs from 14 to 1,805 students, a 129-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 65%
School count
Top 46%
Resource Index average
44th percentile
Teacher staffing
88th percentile
Brainerd Senior High accounts for 52.6% of all Brainerd public-school enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Brainerd a distant remainder — means Brainerd-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. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
Brainerd school enrollment varies 129× across entities
Brainerd school enrollment ranges from 14 students (lowest) to 1,805 students (highest), a spread of 1,791 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.
Brainerd student-teacher ratio is 12.1:1 — 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.
11% of the city's listed public-school campuses are reported as charter schools in NCES CCD. Charter status identifies a different governance arrangement; it does not establish admissions availability, academic quality, or the share of city students enrolled in those campuses. Open each school record to compare enrollment and staffing directly.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Brainerd
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.
Which Brainerd school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Lowell Elementary has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Brainerd 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 Brainerd, MN? ▼
Brainerd has 9 public schools with a total enrollment of 3,433 students. 1 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 12.1:1.
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.
