Total School Districts, Student Enrollment by State and Metro Area

Numbers of school districts and student enrollments vary greatly across different regions of the country.

One way to measure school district "fragmentation" is to compare average student enrollments for school districts. Nationally, local public school districts had an average enrollment of 3,659 students in the 2013-2014 school year.

A review of 2013-2014 school year enrollment data finds districts with smaller enrollemnts are fairly prevalent across the country. About a third of all local districts are made up of only one or two public schools. Nearly half of all districts nationally -- 46 percent -- have fewer than 1,000 students.

In general, rural states tend to report smaller average student enrollments. Texas (1,029) and California (941) reported the highest tallies of school districts. Hawaii, by contrast, maintains the country's only statewide public school district.

This table shows student enrollment statistics and numbers of local districts by state for the 2013-2014 school year:

State	Average District Enrollment	Total Enrollment	Total Districts	Excluded Districts	Total Schools
Montana	354	144,034	415	8	818
North Dakota	587	101,593	182	9	465
South Dakota	869	130,366	151	1	684
Maine	980	175,404	238	59	596
Nebraska	1,235	307,398	249	0	1,056
Oklahoma	1,293	667,246	521	5	1,757
Iowa	1,432	494,043	348	3	1,380
Missouri	1,712	857,782	521	20	2,133
Kansas	1,717	491,147	309	23	1,335
Wyoming	1,928	92,563	48	0	352
Arkansas	2,027	478,273	238	2	1,047
Wisconsin	2,046	863,587	422	0	2,197
New Jersey	2,291	1,335,382	602	19	2,410
New York	2,380	1,625,554	697	14	2,879
Illinois	2,388	2,025,371	865	17	3,927
Idaho	2,431	277,084	115	1	657
Minnesota	2,459	789,472	340	19	1,932
Alaska	2,506	130,294	53	1	506
Michigan	2,509	1,347,390	550	13	3,009
Ohio	2,604	1,601,393	618	3	3,200
Connecticut	3,046	514,830	169	0	1,041
Oregon	3,121	546,227	180	5	1,198
Pennsylvania	3,200	1,596,608	500	1	2,801
Massachusetts	3,297	784,569	238	0	1,524
Indiana	3,451	1,007,671	296	4	1,823
Mississippi	3,629	410,089	151	38	839
New Mexico	3,668	326,476	89	0	809
Washington	3,727	1,047,182	298	17	2,296
Rhode Island	3,940	122,130	35	4	254
Kentucky	3,984	673,316	175	6	1,476
Arizona	4,547	936,781	226	20	1,487
Texas	4,852	4,929,986	1,029	13	8,543
Colorado	4,857	864,583	178	0	1,795
West Virginia	5,250	272,974	55	3	711
Alabama	6,307	630,683	137	37	1,244
Delaware	6,341	120,475	19	0	199
California	6,640	5,995,854	941	38	9,551
Tennessee	7,387	982,444	141	8	1,819
South Carolina	8,759	726,965	84	1	1,181
Louisiana	9,342	653,921	70	0	1,292
Georgia	9,440	1,699,185	180	0	2,320
Virginia	9,687	1,259,295	132	2	1,967
North Carolina	12,520	1,439,856	115	0	2,446
Utah	14,949	568,045	41	3	889
Nevada	27,223	435,574	18	2	637
Maryland	36,074	865,768	24	0	1,441
District of Columbia	44,942	44,942	1	0	115
Florida	46,237	2,681,751	67	9	4,218
Hawaii	186,825	186,825	1	0	290

See methodology

Metro Area School District Data

Select a region to display school district and student enrollment statistics for metro areas:

Data and Methodology

Governing compiled data from the 2013-2014 Local Education Agency Universe Survey published by the National Center for Education Statistics. Only local public school districts were included in calculations; charter districts, state education agencies and other school district types were not included. A small number of districts reported no enrollment data or zero students, which were also excluded from state and metro area averages.