Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
5 public K-12 schools in Dunkirk 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, Dunkirk has more public-school enrollment than 11% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Dunkirk Senior High School enrolls 46.4% of Dunkirk'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.
Combined-grade campuses shape the local portfolio
2 of Dunkirk's 5 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.
The composite and staffing measures point in different directions
Dunkirk's average Resource Investment Index sits at the 17th percentile, while its teacher-staffing measure sits at the 76th percentile. The 59-point percentile gap is a reminder that the index is not a class-size score: counselors, gifted-program reporting, and attendance also affect it. Compare those components directly when two schools have similar index totals; the same headline score can arise from a different mix of reported resources.
City enrollment
Top 89%
School count
Top 99%
Resource Index average
17th percentile
Teacher staffing
76th percentile
Dunkirk Senior High School accounts for 46.4% of all Dunkirk public-school enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Dunkirk a distant remainder — means Dunkirk-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade level: Combined. 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.
Dunkirk school enrollment varies 6.6× across entities
Dunkirk school enrollment ranges from 134 students (lowest) to 882 students (highest), a spread of 748 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.
The reported share sits between 62.5% and 75%, above a simple majority but below the highest descriptive band used here. 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.
Dunkirk operates one school district — a single-district system
Dunkirk'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.
Dunkirk student-teacher ratio is 13.3:1 — 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.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Dunkirk
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 Dunkirk school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
School 7 has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Dunkirk schools in this federal-data comparison at 52/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Dunkirk, NY? ▼
Dunkirk has 5 public schools with a total enrollment of 1,900 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 13.3:1.
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.
