NCES CCD 2024-25 6 schools MS

Best-Resourced Schools in Petal, MS

Compiled from official source data by .

6 public K-12 schools in Petal 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
6
Schools
4,426
Students
43.8/100
Avg Resource Index
12.6:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Middle-of-corpus city profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Petal has more public-school enrollment than 49% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Petal 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.

The school portfolio is elementary-weighted

3 of Petal's 6 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 1 middle and 1 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.

Campus spread matters more than the city mean

The 24-point gap between Runnelstown Elementary School and Petal Middle School shows the range hidden by Petal's average Resource Investment Index. The city figure is useful for national placement, but families ultimately choose among campuses with different grade spans, enrollment, district affiliations, and reported support fields. Start with schools serving the relevant grade level, then compare the index components rather than assuming the city average describes any one classroom.

City enrollment
Top 51%
School count
Top 79%
Resource Index average
64th percentile
Teacher staffing
83rd percentile

Petal High School accounts for 29.9% of all Petal public-school enrollment

That dominant concentration means Petal-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

Petal school enrollment varies 7.7× across entities

Petal school enrollment ranges from 173 students (lowest) to 1,324 students (highest), a spread of 1,151 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous school portfolio for a city this size. 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

Petal reports 59.2% 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

Petal student-teacher ratio is 12.6:1 — 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. Runnelstown Elementary School 55
2. Petal Elementary 49
3. Petal Primary School 46
4. Petal Upper Elementary School 45
5. Petal High School 37
6. Petal Middle School 31

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Petal

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 Petal Primary School 50.9/100
  2. 2 Petal High School 49.9/100
  3. 3 Petal Elementary 49.3/100
  4. 4 Petal Upper Elementary School 49.2/100
  5. 5 Petal Middle School 43.9/100

What do families ask about schools in Petal?

Which Petal school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Runnelstown Elementary School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Petal schools in this federal-data comparison at 55/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.

How many schools are in Petal, MS? ▼

Petal has 6 public schools with a total enrollment of 4,426 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 12.6:1.

Other Cities in Mississippi

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58 schools
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23 schools
Hattiesburg
18 schools
Meridian
18 schools
Olive Branch
14 schools
Biloxi
13 schools

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

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.