Ok, this might only interest my few Cincinnati readers (or maybe just me), but I really wanted to get some stats on the schools here. I grew up in Cincinnati, so I find it interesting to compare and contrast different schools. As an athlete, we played against many schools in this list- we got our ass kicked by the rich suburban schools (Mason, Anderson, Turpin), we beat up on the little rural schools (Batavia, Western Brown, etc) and marveled at the large new schools like Lakota West and Mason (they had a fireplace in the lobby!). The schools in parentheses at the end of each list were added because I know certain readers would want to know where their alma mater or school they teach at ranks.

There were 109 high schools that I found to be in the greater Cincinnati area- this includes Hamilton, Warren, Butler, Clermont, Brown, and Clinton counties in Ohio, and Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties in Kentucky. I removed online, adult and juvenile detention schools from the list (FYI the largest school in my entire database is the Ohio Virtual Academy with 11,640 students in grades Kindergarten-12th). Ohio has on average 637 students per high school- for comparison, Florida has 1513 and California has 1416. Ohio ranks 33rd and Kentucky is 21st in average high school size.

Largest High Schools:
1. Mason, Mason OH, 3246 students (largest in state of Ohio)
2. Oak Hills, Cincinnati, 2537 students
3. Lakota East, Liberty Township OH, 2522 students
4. Lakota West, West Chester OH, 2475 students
5. Fairfield, Fairfield OH, 2079 students (Grades 10-12)
6. Colerain, Cincinnati, 1903 students
7. Hamilton, Hamilton OH, 1880 students (Grades 10-12)
8. Milford, Milford OH, 1809 students
9. Sycamore, Cincinnati, 1763 students
10. Middletown, Middletown OH, 1691 students
(Anderson is 22nd, Glen Este is 23rd, Amelia is 26th with 1080 students, and Northwest is 31st with 970)

Smallest High Schools (all in Cincy unless noted):
1. East End Community Heritage School, 24
2. Accelerated Achievement Academy of East Cincinnati, 33
3. Leadership Academy of Mathematics & Science of Cincinnati, 34
4. Arlington Heights Academy, 34
5. Summit Academy Secondary School, Middletown OH, 51

High Schools with highest minority percentage:* (all are located in Cincy)
1. Accelerated Achievement Academy of East Cincinnati, 33 students, 100%
2. Cincinnati College Preparatory Academy, 123 students, 100%
3. Withrow University High School, 910 students, 99%
4. Dohn Community, 174 students, 99%
5. Withrow International, 286 students, 98.6%
*Percentages are based on all grades in the school (so it includes grades below 9 if they exist)
First non-inner city school is Winton Woods with 84% followed by Mt. Healthy and then Princeton High School (67.7%)

High schools with lowest minority percentage:
1. Western Brown, Mt. Orab OH, 833 students, 1.6%
2. Williamsburg, Williamsburg OH, 519 students, 2.5%
3. Fayetteville-Perry, Fayetteville OH, 275 students, 2.5%
4. Clermont Northeastern High, Batavia OH, 496 students, 2.6%
5. New Miami High School, Hamilton OH, 184 students, 2.7%
(Amelia ranked 29th at 5.7%, Glen Este is 36th at 6.2%, Anderson is 48th with 8.8%, Colerain is 70th at 28%, Northwest is 77th at 47%)

Schools with highest free/reduced lunch percentage*
1. North College Hill, Cincinnati, 389 students, 99% (home of NBA star OJ Mayo)
2. Mount Auburn International Academy, 54 students, 98.7%
3. Horizon Science Academy, Cincinnati, 121 students, 98%**
4. New Miami High School, Hamilton OH, 184 students, 98%
5. Hughes Center High School, Cincinnati, 168 students, 98%
6. Theodore Roosevelt Public Community School, Cincinnati, 56 students, 98%
7. Oyler School, Cincinnati, 232 students, 98% (Interesting NPR piece on this “urban Appalachian” school)
*Must have > 50 high school students, percentages include all grades

Schools with lowest free/reduced lunch percentage
1. Indian Hill, Cincinnati, 716 students, 5.7% (I thought this would be, like, zero)
2. Mason, Mason OH, 3246 students, 6.3%
3. Madeira, Cincinnati, 449 students, 7.5%
4. Turpin, Cincinnati, 1134 students, 7.6%
5. Springboro, Springboro OH, 1541 students, 10%
6. Mariemont, Cincinnati, 421 students, 10%
7. Beechwood, Ft. Mitchell KY, 366, 11%
(Glen Este was 17th at 20.6%, Amelia was 29th at 27%, Colerain is 47th at 42%, Northwest is 60th at 54%)

Note: Only 92% of the 109 schools reported totals for students receiving free or reduced lunch (there’s also a chance they do their own lunch program). Non reporting schools: Oak Hills, Hughes STEM, Lockland, Aiken, Fayetteville-Perry, Western Hills Engineering, Western Hills University, Withrow international, and Withrow University.

Schools with best student-teacher ratio:
1. Summit Academy Secondary School, Middletown OH, 6.4 (51 students)
2. Arlington Heights Academy, 7 (49 students, 34 high school)
3. Leadership Academy of Math & Science, Cincinnati, 8.5 (34 students)
4. East End Community Heritage School, 10.12 (86 students, 24 high school)
5. Horizon Science Academy, cincinnati, 10.22 (378 students, 121 high school)
6. Madison High, Middletown OH, 10.81 (454 students)
7. Accelerated Achievement Academy of East Cincinnati, 11 (33 students)
8. Ripley-Union-Lewis-Huntington High, Brown County, 11.54 (300 students)
9. Dayton High, Dayton KY, 11.72 (340 students, 220 high school)

Glen Este is 22nd with 14.4, Amelia is 59th with 17.5, Northwest is 71st with 18.3, Colerain is 95th with 20.7. Anderson and Turpin, both in the same school district, are at 18.14 and 18.13 respectively, which is impressive to me that they got it so exactly the same.

High schools with worst student-teacher ratio:
1. Withrow University, 23.7
2. Lebanon, Lebanon OH, 23.6
3. Theodore Roosevelt Community School, 22.75
4. Oyler School, Cincinnati, 22.43
5. Walnut Hills, Cincinnati, 22.18
6. North College Hill, 21.8
7. Kings High, Kings Mills OH, 21.8
8. Fairfield, Fairfield OH, 21.55

High schools with highest Asian population:
1. Mason, 11.1% (361 total)
2. Sycamore, 9.8%
3. Indian Hill, 7.7%
4. Lakota West, 5.8%
5. Lakota East, 5.1%

High Schools with highest Hispanic population:*
1. Withrow International, 7%
2. Princeton High, 6.9%
3. Boone County, Kentucky, 6.2%
4. Hamilton High, 6.2%
5. Middletown High, 6%
*Texas, we are not

Largest Middle Schools (grades 5-8 or a subset):
1. Mason Middle School, 1798 (grades 7-8)
2. Fairfield Middle School, 1594 (grades 7-8)
3. Campbell County Middle, 1198 (grades 6-8)
4. Edgewood Middle, Hamilton OH, 1179 (grades 5-8)
5. Nagel Middle, feeds into Anderson & Turpin, 1138 (grades 7-8)

Largest Elementary Schools (has grades K-6 or a subset of those grades):
1. Mason Intermediate School, 2673 students in grades 4-6
2. Fairfield Intermediate Elementary School, 1565 students in grades 5-6
3. Mason Early Childhood Center Elementary School, 1536 total in preK-1st grade
4. North Pointe Elementary, Hebron KY, 1101 students in grades preK-5th
5. River Ridge Elementary, Villa Hills KY, 1059 students in grades preK-5th
6. North Elementary, 1006 students in grades preK-6th (Mt. Healthy schools)
7. South Elementary, 1004 students in grades preK-6th (Mt. Healthy schools)

I hope to eventually post a table on a separate page with all the schools- kind of feel like I’m cheating people here.

Looking at Mason Intermediate with 2673 kids- what a huge amount!! I can’t imagine having 32+ classrooms per grade level. From looking at their website, they create teams of 2-4 teachers and give parents a list of descriptions of each team, like their teaching philosophy and what kinds of methods they prefer, and allow the parents to submit a ranked list of which team they’d prefer their child to be in. To me, this would be a bonus of living in that district- so much choice! But it would be weird to have SO many kids and see different faces every year. You wouldn’t get your best friend in a bunch of your classes (I know school is for academics, but having friends is important, too). One reviewer of the school wrote: “Large number of students and rather random way in which classes are assigned leads to some alienation year to year. Have to meet all new kids and establish relationships every August. Probably would work better in a house or neighborhood system.” Also, Mason must be a very competitive district for teachers because the team lists for Mason Intermediate included the amount of experience for each teacher and I didn’t see any teachers with less than four years of experience (I’d link to this page but I can’t find it anymore).

After looking through several school websites, it struck me how much schools have changed over the decades. They are quite the institutions and have evolved greatly since one room school houses teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic. So many services, clubs, activities, rules, groups and forms- it kind of seemed overwhelming.