Compiled from official source data by PlainSchools.
20 public K-12 schools in Moses Lake 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, Moses Lake has more public-school enrollment than 75% of the 4,487 US cities in this directory. Moses Lake's average Resource Investment Index ranks above most listed cities even though its student-teacher ratio is on the more crowded side of the national city distribution. That is a useful mismatch, not a contradiction: counselor access, gifted programs, and attendance can lift the composite while classroom staffing remains comparatively tight. Families should inspect the component scores on each school profile instead of reading the city index as a shorthand for small classes.
The school portfolio is elementary-weighted
11 of Moses Lake's 20 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 4 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 64-point gap between Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center and Vanguard Academy shows the range hidden by Moses Lake'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 25%
School count
Top 15%
Resource Index average
65th percentile
Teacher staffing
33rd percentile
Moses Lake High School accounts for 22.0% of all Moses Lake public-school enrollment
That concentration means Moses Lake-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.
Moses Lake school enrollment varies 35× across entities
Moses Lake school enrollment ranges from 53 students (lowest) to 1,856 students (highest), a spread of 1,803 students. That ratio is among the widest observed and reflects extreme heterogeneity inside a single city, with small specialty programs listed alongside large comprehensive campuses. 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 clears the 50% majority mark. 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.
Moses Lake operates one school district — a single-district system
Moses Lake'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.
Moses Lake 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 Moses Lake is typically wider than the Moses Lake-aggregate figure suggests.
Most racially and ethnically mixed schools in Moses Lake
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 Moses Lake school has the highest Resource Investment Index? ▼
Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center has the highest Resource Investment Index among the Moses Lake schools in this federal-data comparison at 73/100. The index summarizes reported staffing, counseling, gifted-program, and attendance inputs; it is not an academic rating.
How many schools are in Moses Lake, WA? ▼
Moses Lake has 20 public schools with a total enrollment of 8,430 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.
