Largest Public Schools in Phoenix, AZ
The largest public schools located in Phoenix, Arizona, ranked by enrollment in the 2023–24 NCES Common Core of Data, with lunch-eligibility figures for each campus.
Public schools physically located in Phoenix enrolled 220,802 students in the 2023–24 school year across 452 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 Phoenix, 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 Phoenix
| # | School | District / agency | Level | Enrollment 2023–24 | Free/reduced lunch |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arizona Virtual Academy | Portable Practical Educational Preparation Inc. ( (87405) | Other | 4,499 | n/r |
| 2 | Trevor Browne High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 2,803 | n/r |
| 3 | Desert Vista High School | Tempe Union High School District (4287) | High | 2,802 | n/r |
| 4 | Maryvale High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 2,685 | n/r |
| 5 | Pinnacle High School | Paradise Valley Unified District (4241) | High | 2,501 | n/r |
| 6 | Sunnyslope High School | Glendale Union High School District (4285) | High | 2,270 | n/r |
| 7 | Camelback High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 2,191 | n/r |
| 8 | South Mountain High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 2,171 | n/r |
| 9 | Alhambra High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 2,118 | n/r |
| 10 | Carl Hayden High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 2,066 | n/r |
| 11 | North High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 1,902 | n/r |
| 12 | Paradise Valley High School | Paradise Valley Unified District (4241) | High | 1,886 | n/r |
| 13 | Metro Tech High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 1,817 | n/r |
| 14 | Central High School | Phoenix Union High School District (4286) | High | 1,758 | n/r |
| 15 | North Canyon High School | Paradise Valley Unified District (4241) | High | 1,742 | n/r |
The largest campus, Arizona Virtual Academy, enrolled 4,499 students — 2.0% 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
The largest Phoenix campuses did not report usable lunch counts in the 2023–24 CCD School Lunch file, so no city aggregate is published here; the table marks those campuses n/r.
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 Phoenix whichever district runs them. For agency-level figures — staffing, spending and diplomas — use the district pages in the district index or the Arizona 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 Phoenix?
Arizona Virtual Academy is the largest public school located in Phoenix, Arizona, with 4,499 students in the 2023–24 NCES CCD School Membership file.
How many public school students are in Phoenix?
Schools located within Phoenix city limits enroll 220,802 students in total in 2023–24; the 15 largest campuses listed here account for 35,211 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.