Largest Public Schools in Philadelphia, PA
The largest public schools located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, ranked by enrollment in the 2023–24 NCES Common Core of Data, with lunch-eligibility figures for each campus.
Public schools physically located in Philadelphia enrolled 178,393 students in the 2023–24 school year across 302 campuses with reported enrollment. City pages answer a different question from district pages: a district is a governing agency that can span many cities, while this page groups individual campuses by the city in their CCD location address. The distinction matters in metros like Philadelphia, where one district may run most campuses but charter and neighboring-district schools also sit inside city limits. Every figure here is a campus figure from the school-level CCD files, labeled 2023–24.
The 15 largest schools in Philadelphia
| # | School | District / agency | Level | Enrollment 2023–24 | Free/reduced lunch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Northeast HS | Philadelphia City SD | High | 3,264 | 100% |
| 2 | Philadelphia Performing Arts CS | Philadelphia Performing Arts CS | Other | 2,600 | 70% |
| 3 | Central HS | Philadelphia City SD | High | 2,287 | 100% |
| 4 | Lincoln HS | Philadelphia City SD | High | 2,201 | 100% |
| 5 | MaST Community CS II | MaST Community CS II | Other | 1,895 | 69% |
| 6 | Washington George HS | Philadelphia City SD | High | 1,886 | 100% |
| 7 | First Philadelphia Preparatory CS | First Philadelphia Preparatory CS | Other | 1,818 | 100% |
| 8 | Northeast Community Propel Academy | Philadelphia City SD | Elementary | 1,762 | 100% |
| 9 | Mayfair Sch | Philadelphia City SD | Elementary | 1,688 | 100% |
| 10 | Esperanza Academy CS | Esperanza Academy CS | Other | 1,641 | 90% |
| 11 | Baldi C C A MS | Philadelphia City SD | Middle | 1,515 | 100% |
| 12 | New Foundations CS | New Foundations CS | Other | 1,508 | 69% |
| 13 | Mariana Bracetti Academy CS | Mariana Bracetti Academy CS | Other | 1,506 | 100% |
| 14 | Mathematics Science & Technology Community CS | Mathematics Science & Technology Community CS | Other | 1,486 | 57% |
| 15 | Frank Anne Sch | Philadelphia City SD | Elementary | 1,483 | 100% |
The largest campus, Northeast HS, enrolled 3,264 students — 1.8% of all students in schools located in the city. Large comprehensive high schools dominate the top of most city rankings because elementary schools are deliberately kept small and neighborhood-based, while high schools consolidate whole districts into a few campuses. Where a very large campus is a virtual or alternative school, its CCD school type says so in the source file, and readers should weigh that before comparing it with a traditional campus.
Reading the lunch-eligibility column
Across the 15 largest Philadelphia campuses that reported lunch counts, 90.8% of students were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch in 2023–24.
Eligibility is a family-income measure collected through the National School Lunch Program and reported to NCES by each school. Campuses marked n/r did not report a usable count — in some cases because the school serves all meals free under the Community Eligibility Provision and reports through a different route. The column is therefore best read campus by campus, and the aggregate above is computed only over reporting campuses, which the text states openly rather than burying in a footnote.
How city totals relate to district totals
If you add the campuses here, the sum will not match any single district’s enrollment, and it is not supposed to: district totals count every student a district serves wherever the campus sits, while this page counts every student in campuses located in Philadelphia whichever district runs them. For agency-level figures — staffing, spending and diplomas — use the district pages in the district index or the Pennsylvania state pages for statewide totals. Both views come from the same 2023–24 CCD files; they simply group the same schools two different ways.
Frequently asked questions
What is the largest public school in Philadelphia?
Northeast HS is the largest public school located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with 3,264 students in the 2023–24 NCES CCD School Membership file.
How many public school students are in Philadelphia?
Schools located within Philadelphia city limits enroll 178,393 students in total in 2023–24; the 15 largest campuses listed here account for 28,540 of them. City limits are not district boundaries, so this is a campus-location total, not a district total.
Data: National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data and EDFacts, retrieved October 2026, from nces.ed.gov. Enrollment, staffing and lunch figures are for the 2023–24 school year; finance figures are fiscal year 2024 (school year 2023–24) unless a page labels them otherwise.
Disclaimer: Public School Stats republishes official federal statistics for general information only. Figures are reported as published by NCES and EDFacts and may include imputed or revised values; for decisions affecting a specific school or district, confirm the figure with the district or the NCES source file. See our full Disclaimer.