Largest School Districts in Ohio 2026: Enrollment Rankings & Charts
Columbus City School District ranks as Ohio’s largest traditional public school district in the latest complete federal district membership data, with 46,515 students. Cincinnati and Cleveland are the only other districts above 30,000 students.
The ranking covers the 50 largest regular local school districts in Ohio by student membership. Enrollment is a measure of district scale, not academic performance or school quality.
Ohio District Enrollment Statistics
Summary measures use the same 50-district ranking and 2024–25 membership basis.
Ohio’s 15 Largest Districts by Enrollment
The horizontal ranking highlights the upper end of Ohio’s district enrollment distribution.
Official 2024–25 NCES district membership
The chart displays the 15 largest districts as a visual summary. The complete 50-district ranking remains available in the HTML table.
Where the largest systems separate
- Only three districts exceed 30,000 students; the fourth-ranked district has 24,133.
- Ranks 4 through 6 form a narrower cluster, ranging from 21,290 to 24,133 students.
50 Largest School Districts in Ohio
Rank is determined only by reported student membership. Top 50 share measures each district against the combined enrollment of the 50 districts listed here.
| Rank | District | Enrollment | Top 50 Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Columbus City School District | 46,515 | 8.4% |
| 2 | Cincinnati City School District | 34,531 | 6.2% |
| 3 | Cleveland Municipal School District | 33,143 | 6.0% |
| 4 | Olentangy Local School District | 24,133 | 4.3% |
| 5 | South-Western City School District | 21,924 | 3.9% |
| 6 | Toledo Public Schools | 21,290 | 3.8% |
| 7 | Akron City School District | 19,986 | 3.6% |
| 8 | Lakota Local School District | 17,885 | 3.2% |
| 9 | Dublin City Schools | 16,967 | 3.1% |
| 10 | Hilliard City School District | 16,298 | 2.9% |
| 11 | Westerville City School District | 14,589 | 2.6% |
| 12 | Dayton Public School District | 12,859 | 2.3% |
| 13 | Pickerington Local School District | 11,729 | 2.1% |
| 14 | Worthington City School District | 10,874 | 2.0% |
| 15 | Mason City School District | 10,155 | 1.8% |
| 16 | Fairfield City School District | 9,591 | 1.7% |
| 17 | Hamilton City School District | 9,014 | 1.6% |
| 18 | Parma City School District | 9,001 | 1.6% |
| 19 | Gahanna-Jefferson Public Schools | 8,290 | 1.5% |
| 20 | Centerville City School District | 8,264 | 1.5% |
| 21 | Northwest Local School District (Cincinnati) | 8,260 | 1.5% |
| 22 | Beavercreek City School District | 8,099 | 1.5% |
| 23 | Sylvania City School District | 7,700 | 1.4% |
| 24 | West Clermont Local School District | 7,651 | 1.4% |
| 25 | Kettering City School District | 7,635 | 1.4% |
| 26 | Canton City School District | 7,478 | 1.3% |
| 27 | Oak Hills Local School District | 7,381 | 1.3% |
| 28 | Springfield City School District | 7,288 | 1.3% |
| 29 | Reynoldsburg City School District | 7,130 | 1.3% |
| 30 | Mentor Exempted Village School District | 6,896 | 1.2% |
| 31 | Willoughby-Eastlake City School District | 6,861 | 1.2% |
| 32 | Forest Hills Local School District | 6,827 | 1.2% |
| 33 | Upper Arlington Schools | 6,669 | 1.2% |
| 34 | Washington Local School District | 6,663 | 1.2% |
| 35 | Groveport Madison Local School District | 6,295 | 1.1% |
| 36 | Lancaster City School District | 6,248 | 1.1% |
| 37 | Springboro Community City School District | 6,194 | 1.1% |
| 38 | Lorain City School District | 6,150 | 1.1% |
| 39 | Sycamore Community School District | 6,051 | 1.1% |
| 40 | Milford Exempted Village School District | 5,961 | 1.1% |
| 41 | Middletown City School District | 5,946 | 1.1% |
| 42 | Brunswick City School District | 5,931 | 1.1% |
| 43 | Princeton City School District | 5,927 | 1.1% |
| 44 | Jackson Local School District | 5,880 | 1.1% |
| 45 | Plain Local School District | 5,874 | 1.1% |
| 46 | Medina City School District | 5,867 | 1.1% |
| 47 | Huber Heights City School District | 5,815 | 1.0% |
| 48 | Newark City School District | 5,789 | 1.0% |
| 49 | Marysville Exempted Village School District | 5,781 | 1.0% |
| 50 | Strongsville City School District | 5,757 | 1.0% |
Where the ranking changes scale
- 15 districts enroll at least 10,000 students; rank 16 drops below that threshold at 9,591.
- The midpoint is narrow: Kettering at rank 25 and Canton at rank 26 are separated by only 157 students.
How Enrollment Is Distributed Across the Top 50
Non-overlapping rank groups show how much of the 555,042-student subtotal sits near the top of the ranking.
Shares refer only to the 50 districts in the ranking
160,246 students · 28.9%
92,426 students · 16.7%
143,711 students · 25.9%
158,659 students · 28.6%
These percentages are not shares of all Ohio public-school enrollment. They describe the composition of the 50-district subtotal.
Top five versus the lower half
- The five largest districts together enroll 1,587 more students than ranks 26 through 50 combined.
District Size Bands Within the Top 50
Grouping the ranking by enrollment level shows how quickly the number of districts expands below the largest systems.
What the Enrollment Ranking Shows
The distribution provides more context than rank position alone.
Average Sits Above the Median
The average enrollment across the Top 50 is 11,101, while the median is 7,557. The largest systems pull the mean well above the midpoint of the ranking.
First-to-50th Scale Gap
Columbus enrolls about 8.1 times as many students as the district in 50th place. Rank differences therefore do not represent equal enrollment intervals.
A Tight Lower Boundary
Only 58 students separate ranks 47 through 50, from Huber Heights at 5,815 to Strongsville at 5,757.
Ranking Measures Size Only
Enrollment rank does not measure academic outcomes, funding levels, graduation rates, staffing quality, attendance, or district performance.
Source Years and Definitions
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Common Core of Data public school district data.
Student membership values are from the official 2024–25 district-level data available through the NCES District Locator and CCD data tools.
NCES may display preliminary 2025–26 directory information for district names, addresses, and operating status while student membership remains from 2024–25.
The table ranks the 50 largest Ohio regular local school districts by membership. Community or charter LEAs, educational service centers, joint vocational systems, and other agency types are not included in this ranking.
The Ohio Department of Education and Workforce separately publishes October 2025 Fall Enrollment (Headcount) for public districts and buildings. That state series is newer but is not blended into the NCES membership ranking.
Top 50 shares, rank-group totals, size bands, the mean, median, and scale ratios are calculated from the 50 membership values in the HTML table. Percentages are rounded to one decimal place.
The 2026 label identifies the ranking edition, not the enrollment reporting year. NCES student membership and Ohio fall headcount are separate reporting series and should not be mixed within one ranking without a district-level crosswalk. Membership also differs from Average Daily Membership, attendance, district population, and resident-student counts.