22 public K-12 schools in Lima from NCES Common Core of Data: enrollment, grade span, demographics, and Civil Rights Data Collection statistics for every active campus.
National city placement
According to NCES CCD 2024-25, Lima has more public-school enrollment than 77% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Lima 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.
Lima's list includes 8 elementary, 2 middle, and 4 high-school campuses, plus 8 combined-grade records. The city average spans every major grade stage, so the ranked table is more informative when read within level than as one interchangeable queue.
Free-lunch eligibility is reported for schools covering 50.7% of Lima's listed enrollment. Because the remaining enrollment is outside that calculation, the measured percentage should not be generalized to every local student. The Resource Investment Index uses other reported federal fields and has its own coverage limits. Treat the city figures as a map of available records: inspect a campus's source fields before using economic need or resource position in a comparison.
Lima school enrollment ranges from 7 students (lowest) to 1,004 students (highest), a spread of 997 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
Each school district has independent budgeting, hiring, and service delivery authority. The fragmentation reflects historical patterns of inter-municipal boundary lines that pre-date modern city growth, students in different parts of the same city can attend different districts with different per-pupil spending, calendars, and graduation requirements. Per-region variation is largest in fragmented systems because each school district sets its own budget, contracts, and priorities without higher-level coordination above the regulatory floor.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
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.
| # | School | Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Bath Digital Academy | 72 |
| 2. | Lima South Science-Technology Magnet K-8 | 62 |
| 3. | Unity Elementary School | 53 |
| 4. | Liberty Arts Magnet K-8 | 48 |
| 5. | Lima West Middle School | 48 |
| 6. | Freedom Elementary School | 46 |
| 7. | West Central Learning Academy Ii | 46 |
| 8. | Shawnee High School | 44 |
| 9. | Heritage Elementary School | 42 |
| 10. | Shawnee Middle School | 38 |
| 11. | Maplewood Elementary School | 36 |
| 12. | Lima North Middle School | 35 |
| 13. | Perry High School | 35 |
| 14. | Apollo Career Center | 33 |
| 15. | Perry Elementary School | 32 |
| 16. | Bath High School | 29 |
| 17. | Elmwood Elementary School | 28 |
| 18. | Lima Senior High School | 27 |
| 19. | Bath Middle School | 26 |
| 20. | Independence Elementary School | 22 |
| 21. | Heir Force Community School | 22 |
| 22. | Bath Elementary School | 20 |
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.
Bath Digital Academy has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Lima schools in this federal-data comparison at 72/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
Lima has 22 public schools with a total enrollment of 8,917 students. 2 are charter schools. Average student-teacher ratio: 13.9:1.
Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in Ohio →
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.
