Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
9 public K-12 schools in Kirkwood 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, Kirkwood has more public-school enrollment than 63% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Kirkwood's average Resource Investment Index ranks above most listed cities even though its student-teacher ratio is on the more crowded side of the national city distribution. That is a useful mismatch, not a contradiction: counselor access, gifted programs, and attendance can lift the composite while classroom staffing remains comparatively tight. Families should inspect the component scores on each school profile instead of reading the city index as a shorthand for small classes.
The school portfolio is elementary-weighted
5 of Kirkwood'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 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
Kirkwood's schools share one district authority while their average Resource Investment Index ranks at the 85th 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 45-point gap between North Kirkwood Middle and Kirkwood Early Child. Ctr. 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 37%
School count
Top 46%
Resource Index average
85th percentile
Teacher staffing
25th percentile
Kirkwood Sr. High accounts for 28.3% of all Kirkwood public-school enrollment
That dominant concentration means Kirkwood-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.
Kirkwood school enrollment varies 5.6× across entities
Kirkwood school enrollment ranges from 304 students (lowest) to 1,693 students (highest), a spread of 1,389 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.
Kirkwood operates one school district — a single-district system
Kirkwood'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.
Kirkwood student-teacher ratio is 18.0:1 — 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 Kirkwood is typically wider than the Kirkwood-aggregate figure suggests.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Kirkwood
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 Kirkwood school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
North Kirkwood Middle has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Kirkwood 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 Kirkwood, MO? ▼
Kirkwood has 9 public schools with a total enrollment of 5,982 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 18:1.
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.
