22 public K-12 schools in Portsmouth 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, Portsmouth has more public-school enrollment than 86% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Portsmouth 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.
13 of Portsmouth's 22 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 3 middle and 3 high-school records. Families comparing later grades should rely on those individual rows rather than the all-school mean.
The 16-point gap between Simonsdale Elementary and Brighton Elementary shows the range hidden by Portsmouth'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.
Portsmouth school enrollment ranges from 112 students (lowest) to 1,453 students (highest), a spread of 1,341 students. That spread reflects typical urban portfolio variation between specialty programs and large neighbourhood schools. 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
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.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data
Portsmouth'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.
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. | Simonsdale Elementary | 51 |
| 2. | Churchland High | 50 |
| 3. | Churchland Primary & Intermediate | 50 |
| 4. | Churchland Elementary | 49 |
| 5. | Churchland Academy Elementary | 49 |
| 6. | Cradock Middle | 49 |
| 7. | Westhaven Elementary | 49 |
| 8. | Victory Elementary | 48 |
| 9. | William E. Waters Middle | 47 |
| 10. | Manor High | 45 |
| 11. | Lakeview Elementary | 45 |
| 12. | Park View Elementary | 45 |
| 13. | Olive Branch Preschool Center | 44 |
| 14. | I.C. Norcom High | 43 |
| 15. | Churchland Middle | 43 |
| 16. | Churchland Preschool Center | 43 |
| 17. | Douglass Park Elementary | 42 |
| 18. | Mount Hermon Preschool Center | 42 |
| 19. | Cradock Elementary | 41 |
| 20. | Waterview Elementary | 40 |
| 21. | Hodges Manor Elementary | 36 |
| 22. | Brighton Elementary | 35 |
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.
Simonsdale Elementary has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Portsmouth schools in this federal-data comparison at 51/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
Portsmouth has 22 public schools with a total enrollment of 12,905 students. Average student-teacher ratio: 13.7:1.
Side-by-side: Compare any two schools or districts in Virginia →
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.
