Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
6 public K-12 schools in The Dalles 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, The Dalles has more public-school enrollment than 23% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. The Dalles's 6 listed schools all sit inside one district, creating a compact governance structure with one budget, board, and reporting chain. That makes citywide comparisons cleaner than in places split across several districts, but it does not make the campuses interchangeable: elementary, middle, and high-school staffing needs differ. The ranked list is best read as variation inside one system rather than competition among separate local authorities.
The school portfolio is elementary-weighted
3 of The Dalles'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 28-point gap between Innovations Academy and Chenowith Elementary School shows the range hidden by The Dalles'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 77%
School count
Top 79%
Resource Index average
38th percentile
Teacher staffing
33rd percentile
The Dalles High School accounts for 29.7% of all The Dalles public-school enrollment
That dominant concentration means The Dalles-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.
The Dalles school enrollment varies 3.4× across entities
The Dalles school enrollment ranges from 232 students (lowest) to 795 students (highest), a spread of 563 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 is at least 75%, indicating a high concentration of measured economic need. 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.
The Dalles operates one school district — a single-district system
The Dalles'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.
The Dalles student-teacher ratio is 17.0:1 — 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 The Dalles is typically wider than the The Dalles-aggregate figure suggests.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in The Dalles
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 The Dalles school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Innovations Academy has the highest Resource Investment Index among the The Dalles schools in this federal-data comparison at 58/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in The Dalles, OR? ▼
The Dalles has 6 public schools with a total enrollment of 2,673 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 17:1.
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.
