Education in Greater St. Louis - Primary and Secondary Education

Primary and Secondary Education

See also: List of high schools in Greater St. Louis

Greater St. Louis is home to more than thirty public school districts; among the largest districts by enrollment in 2010 are the St. Louis Public Schools with 25,046 students, Rockwood School District with 22,382 students, and Fort Zumwalt School District with 18,840 students. Greater St. Louis schools also are notable for their excellence in the state of Missouri; four of the five public high schools in Missouri that were ranked among the top 500 in the United States by Newsweek in 2011 were from Greater St. Louis: Clayton High School in Clayton School District, Metro Academic and Classical High School in the St. Louis Public Schools, Ladue Horton Watkins High School in Ladue School District, and Rockwood Summit High School in Rockwood School District. However, other schools have struggled financially and academically: the St. Louis Public Schools lost its accreditation and was taken over by the Missouri Board of Education, while the East St. Louis Public Schools repeatedly have been taken over by the state of Illinois due to financial problems and corruption.

Several independent private schools operate in Greater St. Louis, including Whitfield School, Mary Institute and St. Louis Country Day School, and John Burroughs School. Both private Catholic schools and schools under the authority of the Archdiocese of St. Louis operate in Greater St. Louis, with ten Archdiocesan high schools and more than a dozen private Catholic high schools in the region.