Largest School Districts in New York 2026: Enrollment Rankings & Charts
New York's largest public school district reporting units are ranked by 2024–25 NCES Common Core of Data student membership, the latest complete federal district enrollment year available for a consistent statewide comparison. The ranking covers the 50 largest reporting units and uses student enrollment only.
New York City requires a separate reporting definition. Federal district data list the city's geographic districts as separate units, while the New York State Education Department also publishes citywide aggregates with different coverage. Those citywide totals are not inserted into the federal ranking.
New York District Enrollment Scale
Enrollment measures system size. It does not rank academic performance, school quality, geographic area or district finances.
Top 20 New York District Reporting Units by Enrollment
The largest federal district reporting units span New York City geographic districts and major school systems elsewhere in the state.
Largest 20 District Reporting Units
2024–25 NCES CCD student membership
The chart is a visual summary of the first 20 rows in the full 50-unit ranking. New York City geographic districts remain separate because the federal source reports them as separate district units.
Data analysis
- 17 of the top 20 reporting units are New York City geographic districts.
- Buffalo, Yonkers and Rochester are the only non-NYC systems in the top 20.
- The enrollment threshold for the top 20 is 21,990 students.
50 Largest New York School District Reporting Units
Ranked from highest to lowest 2024–25 NCES student membership. Area identifies the primary county or New York City borough context for each reporting unit.
| Rank | District reporting unit | Area | Enrollment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New York City Geographic District No. 31 | NYC — Staten Island | 60,164 |
| 2 | New York City Geographic District No. 2 | NYC — Manhattan | 55,345 |
| 3 | New York City Geographic District No. 24 | NYC — Queens | 50,026 |
| 4 | New York City Geographic District No. 20 | NYC — Brooklyn | 46,246 |
| 5 | New York City Geographic District No. 10 | NYC — Bronx | 42,464 |
| 6 | New York City Geographic District No. 27 | NYC — Queens | 41,868 |
| 7 | New York City Geographic District No. 28 | NYC — Queens | 38,133 |
| 8 | New York City Geographic District No. 30 | NYC — Queens | 36,624 |
| 9 | New York City Geographic District No. 25 | NYC — Queens | 34,433 |
| 10 | New York City Geographic District No. 21 | NYC — Brooklyn | 34,189 |
| 11 | New York City Geographic District No. 11 | NYC — Bronx | 32,263 |
| 12 | New York City Geographic District No. 22 | NYC — Brooklyn | 31,858 |
| 13 | Buffalo Public Schools | Erie County | 30,077 |
| 14 | New York City Geographic District No. 26 | NYC — Queens | 29,528 |
| 15 | New York City Geographic District No. 15 | NYC — Brooklyn | 26,509 |
| 16 | New York City Geographic District No. 9 | NYC — Bronx | 25,840 |
| 17 | Yonkers City School District | Westchester County | 24,304 |
| 18 | New York City Geographic District No. 29 | NYC — Queens | 23,632 |
| 19 | New York City Geographic District No. 8 | NYC — Bronx | 23,353 |
| 20 | Rochester City School District | Monroe County | 21,990 |
| 21 | New York City Geographic District No. 19 | NYC — Brooklyn | 19,984 |
| 22 | New York City Geographic District No. 13 | NYC — Brooklyn | 19,380 |
| 23 | New York City Geographic District No. 3 | NYC — Manhattan | 19,143 |
| 24 | Syracuse City School District | Onondaga County | 18,662 |
| 25 | Brentwood Union Free School District | Suffolk County | 18,462 |
| 26 | New York City Geographic District No. 6 | NYC — Manhattan | 17,899 |
| 27 | New York City Geographic District No. 17 | NYC — Brooklyn | 17,590 |
| 28 | New York City Geographic District No. 12 | NYC — Bronx | 16,974 |
| 29 | New York City Geographic District No. 14 | NYC — Brooklyn | 15,368 |
| 30 | New York City Geographic District No. 7 | NYC — Bronx | 14,871 |
| 31 | New York City Geographic District No. 18 | NYC — Brooklyn | 11,829 |
| 32 | Sachem Central School District | Suffolk County | 11,697 |
| 33 | New York City Geographic District No. 4 | NYC — Manhattan | 11,201 |
| 34 | Newburgh City School District | Orange County | 11,076 |
| 35 | East Ramapo Central School District | Rockland County | 10,918 |
| 36 | Wappingers Central School District | Dutchess County | 10,514 |
| 37 | Greece Central School District | Monroe County | 10,046 |
| 38 | New Rochelle City School District | Westchester County | 9,895 |
| 39 | Williamsville Central School District | Erie County | 9,718 |
| 40 | William Floyd Union Free School District | Suffolk County | 9,670 |
| 41 | Middle Country Central School District | Suffolk County | 9,545 |
| 42 | New York City Geographic District No. 1 | NYC — Manhattan | 9,393 |
| 43 | Shenendehowa Central School District | Saratoga County | 9,391 |
| 44 | Utica City School District | Oneida County | 9,375 |
| 45 | Schenectady City School District | Schenectady County | 9,117 |
| 46 | New York City Geographic District No. 32 | NYC — Brooklyn | 9,081 |
| 47 | Longwood Central School District | Suffolk County | 9,029 |
| 48 | New York City Geographic District No. 5 | NYC — Manhattan | 8,837 |
| 49 | Albany City School District | Albany County | 8,761 |
| 50 | Clarkstown Central School District | Rockland County | 8,188 |
Table analysis
- Clarkstown Central School District sets the published top-50 threshold at 8,188 students. New York City Geographic District No. 23 reports 8,090 and falls just outside the 50-unit ranking.
Largest Districts Outside New York City
Removing New York City's geographic reporting units makes the enrollment scale of the state's other large urban and suburban systems easier to compare.
Top 10 Outside NYC
2024–25 student membership
Buffalo leads the non-NYC group, followed by Yonkers and Rochester. The chart is derived from the same federal reporting-unit table used for the statewide ranking.
Data analysis
- The largest adjacent enrollment drop within this non-NYC top 10 occurs between Brentwood, at 18,462, and Sachem, at 11,697 — a difference of 6,765 students.
- All ten systems shown report at least 10,046 students.
Why New York City Changes the Ranking Structure
Federal and state education datasets do not use one interchangeable New York City enrollment unit.
NCES district reporting view
Federal district geography data retain New York City's 32 geographic districts as separate reporting units. Thirty of those units appear in the top 50 shown here.
NYC Chancellor's Office aggregate
NYSED reports a 2024–25 K–12 enrollment of 799,752 for the NYC Chancellor's Office. That administrative aggregate does not represent the same unit used for an individual NCES geographic district row.
NYC Public Schools aggregate
NYSED's broader 2024–25 NYC Public Schools K–12 total is 946,747. Its published coverage includes New York City geographic districts and NYC charter schools, so it is not inserted as a replacement row in the NCES ranking.
Combining a NYSED citywide aggregate with individual NCES district units would mix different geographic and organizational coverage in one ranking. All ranked rows therefore use the same federal district reporting basis.
Data Sources, Reporting Units and Limits
National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data and EDGE School District Characteristics. The current district layer uses 2024–25 CCD attributes.
The NCES EDGE School District Characteristics layer provides school district geography and 2024–25 CCD attributes, including district name, total student membership, school count, locale and county fields.
New York State Education Department enrollment files were used to distinguish citywide New York City aggregates from the federal geographic-district reporting structure.
The ranking uses NCES MEMBER, defined in the district characteristics data as total students excluding adult education. Enrollment is reported as whole students.
The table contains the 50 highest-enrollment New York school district reporting units identified on the consistent 2024–25 federal district basis. Rows are ordered from highest to lowest enrollment.
New York City geographic districts remain separate. NYSED citywide totals are retained only as reporting-definition context because their organizational coverage differs from an individual federal district unit.
The year 2026 in the title identifies the ranking edition. The enrollment observations themselves are from the 2024–25 academic-year federal district data. Enrollment rank measures system size only and should not be interpreted as a ranking of academic outcomes, resources or school quality.