NCES CCD 2024-25 22 schools MT

Best-Resourced Schools in Great Falls, MT

Compiled from official source data by .

22 public K-12 schools in Great Falls 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
22
Schools
9,815
Students
38.5/100
Avg Resource Index
13.8:1
Avg Student-Teacher Ratio

National city placement

Middle-of-corpus city profile

According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Great Falls has more public-school enrollment than 80% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Great Falls 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.

Combined-grade campuses shape the local portfolio

17 of Great Falls's 22 listed schools use NCES's combined or “other” grade-level classification. Citywide averages therefore blend campuses serving unusually broad or nonstandard grade spans with conventional elementary, middle, and high schools. Grade configuration is a first-order comparison here, not a minor label.

Campus spread matters more than the city mean

The 31-point gap between Longfellow School and Riverview School shows the range hidden by Great Falls'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 20%
School count
Top 13%
Resource Index average
39th percentile
Teacher staffing
69th percentile

Great Falls High School accounts for 15.8% of all Great Falls public-school enrollment

That concentration means Great Falls-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

Great Falls school enrollment varies 103× across entities

Great Falls school enrollment ranges from 15 students (lowest) to 1,548 students (highest), a spread of 1,533 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.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data

Great Falls student-teacher ratio is 13.8:1 — 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. Longfellow School 56
2. Mt Sch for Deaf & Blnd Hs 55
3. Mt Sch for Deaf & Blnd El 54
4. Whittier School 48
5. Morningside School 44
6. Chief Joseph School 43
7. Mountain View School 41
8. C M Russell High School 38
9. Valley View School 38
10. Great Falls High School 37
11. Loy School 37
12. Lewis & Clark School 37
13. East Middle School 35
14. Sacajawea School 35
15. Lincoln School 35
16. Grass Land Colony School 35
17. North Middle School 33
18. Sunnyside School 33
19. West Elementary 32
20. Giant Springs Elementary 29
21. Meadow Lark School 27
22. Riverview School 25

Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Great Falls

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 Longfellow School 72.0/100
  2. 2 Whittier School 71.7/100
  3. 3 Sunnyside School 61.5/100
  4. 4 Loy School 57.7/100
  5. 5 Mountain View School 56.6/100

What do families ask about schools in Great Falls?

Which Great Falls school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼

Longfellow School has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Great Falls 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 Great Falls, MT? ▼

Great Falls has 22 public schools with a total enrollment of 9,815 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 13.8:1.

Other Cities in Montana

Billings
43 schools
Missoula
23 schools
Bozeman
22 schools
Kalispell
22 schools
Helena
15 schools
Cut Bank
11 schools

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

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.