Largest School Districts in Michigan 2026: Enrollment Rankings & Charts
Michigan's 50 largest regular local school districts are ranked by district-level student membership reported in the National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data for 2024–25.
Regional service agencies, intermediate school districts, charter LEAs and other non-regular agency types are excluded. NCES released a 2025–26 preliminary directory on July 14, 2026, but that release does not contain the full district membership series needed to replace the 2024–25 enrollment ranking.
Michigan’s Largest Local District Systems
Counts use NCES district-level total student membership rather than a sum of individual school enrollment records.
Michigan’s 20 Largest Regular Local School Districts
NCES CCD district membership, 2024–25
The chart summarizes the first 20 districts. The complete 50-district ranking remains available in the HTML table.
Enrollment spread
- Enrollment falls below 10,000 students at rank 14, creating a clear break between Michigan's largest systems and the rest of the top 20.
- The district ranked 10th enrolls about 26% as many students as Detroit, showing how far the largest system sits above most of the ranking.
50 Largest Regular Local School Districts in Michigan
Rank is based only on 2024–25 NCES total student membership. NCES agency type must be “Regular local school district” for inclusion.
| Rank | District | Enrollment |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Detroit Public Schools Community District | 48,828 |
| 2 | Utica Community Schools | 25,297 |
| 3 | Dearborn City School District | 19,262 |
| 4 | Ann Arbor Public Schools | 16,871 |
| 5 | Plymouth-Canton Community Schools | 16,083 |
| 6 | Rochester Community School District | 14,868 |
| 7 | Chippewa Valley Schools | 14,276 |
| 8 | Grand Rapids Public Schools | 13,692 |
| 9 | Livonia Public Schools School District | 13,076 |
| 10 | Warren Consolidated Schools | 12,564 |
| 11 | Troy School District | 12,283 |
| 12 | Kalamazoo Public Schools | 12,273 |
| 13 | Walled Lake Consolidated Schools | 11,818 |
| 14 | Lansing Public School District | 9,951 |
| 15 | Wayne-Westland Community School District | 9,861 |
| 16 | Kentwood Public Schools | 9,631 |
| 17 | L'Anse Creuse Public Schools | 9,215 |
| 18 | Farmington Public School District | 9,110 |
| 19 | Forest Hills Public Schools | 8,838 |
| 20 | Traverse City Area Public Schools | 8,584 |
| 21 | Portage Public Schools | 8,497 |
| 22 | South Lyon Community Schools | 8,387 |
| 23 | Huron Valley Schools | 7,687 |
| 24 | Rockford Public Schools | 7,509 |
| 25 | Grand Blanc Community Schools | 7,489 |
| 26 | Birmingham Public Schools | 7,424 |
| 27 | Midland Public Schools | 7,380 |
| 28 | Howell Public Schools | 7,045 |
| 29 | Northville Public Schools | 7,022 |
| 30 | Port Huron Area School District | 6,983 |
| 31 | Waterford School District | 6,773 |
| 32 | Novi Community School District | 6,770 |
| 33 | West Ottawa Public School District | 6,757 |
| 34 | Clarkston Community School District | 6,728 |
| 35 | Hudsonville Public School District | 6,709 |
| 36 | Lake Orion Community Schools | 6,589 |
| 37 | Grosse Pointe Public Schools | 6,419 |
| 38 | Bay City School District | 6,030 |
| 39 | Brighton Area Schools | 5,796 |
| 40 | Zeeland Public Schools | 5,788 |
| 41 | Woodhaven-Brownstown School District | 5,688 |
| 42 | Oxford Community Schools | 5,605 |
| 43 | Grandville Public Schools | 5,547 |
| 44 | Davison Community Schools | 5,460 |
| 45 | Grand Ledge Public Schools | 5,440 |
| 46 | Taylor School District | 5,404 |
| 47 | Romeo Community Schools | 5,355 |
| 48 | Anchor Bay School District | 5,334 |
| 49 | Grand Haven Area Public Schools | 5,202 |
| 50 | Jenison Public Schools | 5,165 |
Ranking spread
- The midpoint is tightly grouped: rank 25 Grand Blanc has 7,489 students and rank 26 Birmingham has 7,424, a difference of only 65.
- The bottom four places in the top 50 span only 190 students, from Romeo at 5,355 to Jenison at 5,165.
Enrollment Concentration Within the Top 50
Shares use the 490,363 students represented by the 50 ranked districts as the denominator. They are not shares of all Michigan public-school enrollment.
District Size Distribution
Enrollment bands show how the 50 ranked districts are distributed by system size.
What Defines the Michigan Ranking
Agency classification and reporting period materially affect which systems appear in a largest-district list.
Regular local districts only
NCES classifies several kinds of education agencies as LEAs. The ranking filters to the NCES type “Regular local school district,” preventing regional service agencies and other administrative entities from being mixed with local K–12 districts.
District membership, not school sums
NCES district-level total student membership is used directly. Adding enrollment from individual school records can produce a different total because district and school reporting universes do not always align record for record.
2026 publication, 2024–25 enrollment
The 2025–26 CCD preliminary directory identifies active agencies and their attributes, but it does not provide a replacement full membership series. The latest complete enrollment ranking therefore remains 2024–25 Final Version 1a.
Data Sources, Measurement and Coverage
National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data, 2024–25 district-level student membership, Final Version 1a. The release was issued in December 2025.
NCES “Total Students” at the local education agency level. Districts are sorted from highest to lowest reported membership with no rounding applied to the table values.
Only agencies classified by NCES as “Regular local school district” are eligible. Intermediate school districts, regional service agencies, charter LEAs and other agency types are outside the ranking.
NCES released 2025–26 preliminary directory files on July 14, 2026. That release contains identifying and operational directory fields rather than the full 2025–26 student membership series.
Michigan Department of Education Bulletin 1014 reports a state fall pupil count measure. That state measure is not substituted for NCES total student membership in the ranking because the reporting definitions are not identical.
Top-50 totals, concentration shares, enrollment bands and ranking gaps are calculated from the 50 NCES district membership values shown in the HTML table. Percentage summaries are rounded to one decimal place.
The ranking measures enrollment scale only. Rank does not measure academic performance, district quality, finances, graduation outcomes or student growth.
Official sources: NCES 2024–25 CCD Universe Files, Version 1a; NCES Public School District Locator; NCES 2025–26 Preliminary Directory Files; Michigan Department of Education Bulletin 1014.