Upper Arlington is an independent school district, and its reputation for quality has made Upper Arlington a desirable (and expensive) place to live. As of 2000, the Upper Arlington Board of Education was the city's largest employer. There is one early childhood school named Burbank, which was built as an Elementary but was converted due to a less-than-expected number of students. There are five elementary schools, Barrington, Greensview, Tremont, Wickliffe, and Windermere. Wickliffe exclusively teaches the Informal Style of education, which is also offered at Barrington. Greensview, Tremont, and Windermere only offer the Contemporary program. Generally, more parents prefer the Contemporary program to the informal one, which reflects in the number of schools teaching Contemporary. Hastings and Jones are the two middle schools. Hastings was built in the 1960s and Jones is located in the former high school building. There is only one high school in the Upper Arlington School District (see no. 2 on the map). It is appropriately named Upper Arlington High School. There are also 2 Catholic grade schools, St. Agatha and St. Andrew. The Catholic schools do not offer advanced classes, whereas the public school system starts advanced math in fourth grade. Jones Middle School offers advanced English; the class is called Concilium, and Hastings Middle School offers advanced history, also called Concillium. The high school teaches regularly math one year ahead of State requirements, along with offering Honors and AP courses two to three years ahead of requirements. Rencently, the school has also joined the International Baccalaureate program. There is also one private pre-K-12 school, the Wellington School. The Upper Arlington High School has received a number of accolades, including the highest number of National Merit Semi-Finalists in Ohio's public schools for three of the last four years, a nationally award-winning student newsmagazine, Arlingtonian, and the National Cup for the top orchestra in the country. It was the only school district in the nation to receive three White House honors as Service Learning Leaders.

Upper Arlington maintains its own police and fire departments. The Upper Arlington Police Department is headquartered in the Municipal Service Center and has 49 officers. The Fire Department has 61 fire fighters that operate from three fire houses. The city's public library system has three branches (see nos. 3, 4, and 5 on the map).

The city manages 33 public parks, which cover a total of 170 acres. The larger parks have extensive athletic facilities, while some of the smaller parks have local historical significance or function as wooded nature preserves. Miller Park is located in the center of the old Miller Farm; Mallway Park is centered in the city's original business district and contains the memorial to U.S. military veterans from U.A.; and Wyandot Park bears the gravesite and stone monument to Bill Moose (1837 -1937), cited as the "last of the Wyandots." Other large parks include Thompson, Fancyburg, and Northam, where the city offers tennis courts. The city also owns and operates three public swimming pools, located at Jones, Hastings, and Tremont schools.

The City enjoys a convenient location as a first-ring suburb of Central Ohio, with easy access to downtown Columbus, the Columbus airport and major highways.

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