Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
5 public K-12 schools in Mercersburg 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, Mercersburg has more public-school enrollment than 11% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. James Buchanan Hs enrolls 38.2% of Mercersburg'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.
The school portfolio is elementary-weighted
3 of Mercersburg's 5 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.
The composite and staffing measures point in different directions
Mercersburg's average Resource Investment Index sits at the 12th percentile, while its teacher-staffing measure sits at the 67th percentile. The 55-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
12th percentile
Teacher staffing
67th percentile
James Buchanan Hs accounts for 38.2% of all Mercersburg public-school enrollment
That dominant concentration means Mercersburg-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.
Mercersburg school enrollment varies 3.9× across entities
Mercersburg school enrollment ranges from 185 students (lowest) to 721 students (highest), a spread of 536 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 above 87.5%, so economic need is widespread across the measured student population. 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.
Mercersburg operates one school district — a single-district system
Mercersburg'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.
Mercersburg student-teacher ratio is 14.0:1 — 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 Mercersburg is typically wider than the Mercersburg-aggregate figure suggests.
What do families ask about schools in Mercersburg?
Which Mercersburg school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Montgomery El Sch has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Mercersburg schools in this federal-data comparison at 36/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Mercersburg, PA? ▼
Mercersburg has 5 public schools with a total enrollment of 1,885 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 14:1.
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.
