DataQuest Highlights

In September 2025, the California Department of Education (CDE) released the Certificated Staff Reports for school year 2024–25 on DataQuest. This release is comprised of four reports that detail data by race/ethnicity, education levels, years of experience, and student-to-certificated staff ratios.

Certificated staff are defined as those who require credentialing for their position, including classroom-based teachers, administrators (superintendent, principal, vice principal), pupil services (counselors, school psychologists, school social workers, nurses), and non-instructional support staff (mentor teachers, teachers on special assignment). All the data are reflective of Census Day information, which are data collected from local educational agencies (LEAs) on the first Wednesday in October.

To access further information about the above report, including key takeaways, resources, and highlights from previously released DataQuest reports, select the links below:

Certificated Staff Counts by Race/Ethnicity
Certificated Staff Education
Certificated Staff Experience
Student/Certificated Staff Ratios
Annual Enrollment Report
Resources
Additional Highlights

2024–25 Certificated Staff Reports

Each section below highlights key takeaways from the 2024–25 Certificated Staff Reports, focusing on the most important findings.

DataQuest users can explore the data at the statewide level or drill down by county, district, and school. The data are also filterable by staff type, school type, alternative school status, grade span, and gender.

For a summary of data trends, users can also view the Certificated Staff Demographic Data Flyer(PDF).

Certificated Staff Counts by Race/Ethnicity

This report details race and ethnicity breakdowns by certificated staff, including total counts for all staff. Users can view these counts by the following race/ethnicity categories: African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Filipino, Hispanic or Latino, Pacific Islander, White, Two or More Races, and Not Reported. Reports can be viewed at the Staff and Course Data web page.

Key Takeaways

• There are 286,126 classroom-based kindergarten through grade twelve (K–12) teachers in 2024–25.
• The numbers of Hispanic or Latino teachers continued to climb during school year 2024–25 — rising an additional 2.1 percent to 74,974.
• The number of Hispanic or Latino pupil services staff also increased by 609 from 2023–24 counts. This represents a dramatic increase of 55.7 percent since 2019–20.
• Statewide, the number of administrators decreased by 191 or -0.7 percent between 2023–24 to 2024–25.

Certificated Staff Education

This report details degree attainment by certificated staff, such as Associate, Baccalaureate, Baccalaureate Plus (bachelor’s degree plus at least 30 units of a higher degree level), Master, Master Plus (master’s degree plus at least 30 doctoral-level units), Doctorate, Special (Juris Doctor), and None. Reports can be viewed at the Staff and Course Data web page.

Key Takeaways

• 98.6 percent of K–12 teachers in California possess a four-year undergraduate degree in 2024–25.
• 129,387 K–12 teachers in California possess a graduate degree in 2024–25, an increase of 1.6 percent from 2023–24.

Certificated Staff Experience

This report details the experience levels of certificated staff such as:

• Experienced: Count of certificated staff who have more than two years of teaching experience.
• Inexperienced: Count of certificated staff who have two or less years of teaching experience.
  • First Year: Count of first year certificated staff.
  • Second Year: Count of second year certificated staff.

Reports can be viewed at the Staff and Course Data web page.

Key Takeaways

• 88.3 percent of K–12 teachers in California in 2024–25 are considered experienced, meaning they have more than two years of teaching experience. This represents an increase of 4,929 teachers since the 2023–24 school year.
• The number of experienced administrators and pupil services educators has also remained steady, with 95.7 percent of administrators considered experienced and 86.3 percent of pupil services staff considered experienced.

Student/Certificated Staff Ratios

This report details student-to-certificated staff ratios. Ratios can be viewed by statewide, county, district, or school aggregates. Data fields include full-time equivalent (FTE) data (1.0 equals full-time employment, 0.5 equals half-time) and certificated staff ratios for teachers, administrators, pupil services and non-instructional support staff. All certificated staff ratios are calculated as student enrollment count divided by certificated staff FTE. Calculated ratios tell users how many students are enrolled per certificated staff personnel. Reports can be viewed at the Staff and Course Data web page.

Key Takeaways

• There are 20.8 students per teaching assignment in California public schools in 2024–25, a decrease of 0.1 since 2023–24 which represents a continued improvement in the student-to-teacher ratio.
• Despite a decline in the total count of administrators, the student to administrator ratio improved by 0.5 from 2023–24 to 203.3 in 2024–25.
• The student-to-pupil-services ratio improved by 4.7, reaching 157.5 in the 2024–25 school year. This marks an ongoing improvement in the ratio since 2019–20.

Resources

Provided below are several CDE web pages and communication links to certificated staff and annual enrollment DataQuest topics:

• Professional Learning: Provides information regarding collaborative professional development aligned to student learning and standards that prepares, trains, and recruits high-quality teachers, principals, paraprofessionals, and other staff.
• Diversifying the Teacher Workforce: Provides information and supportive resources to help recruitment and retention of a diverse teacher workforce.
• Promoting Equitable Access to Teachers: Provides resources to assist LEAs with gathering data and reporting disproportionate access to effective, experienced, and appropriately assigned teachers by low-income and minority students as required under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA).
• Annual Enrollment: Provides the different ways in which users can access annual enrollment reports on DataQuest.
• Annual Enrollment Flyer (PDF)
• DataQuest Schedule: Provides an overview of upcoming DataQuest reports expected for release in the coming year.
• DataQuest Update: Informs users about released reports, new reports, downloadable data files, enhancements, changes to DataQuest, and tips on how to use DataQuest.

Additional Highlights

The DataQuest Highlights web page is continuously updated with the most recent publicly available DataQuest reports. Please select the link below to access the previous highlighted reports:

• 2024-25 Annual Enrollment Reports
• 2023–24 End-of-Year Reports