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Alto, Texas - 3 schools
An equity score of 89/100 ranks Alto Isd #17 of 1044 districts in Texas (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $16,948 per pupil, Alto Isd ranks #150 of 1202 Texas districts by per-pupil spending (Texas districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
536
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$16,948
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Alto Isd operates 3 public schools serving 536 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Texas. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 1 elementary, 1 high schools, a small enough portfolio that most families will interact with nearly every campus in the district at some point. These enrollment and school figures come from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 release, and the district is based in Cherokee County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $16,948 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 1202 Texas districts by per-pupil spending. See how Texas compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 22.9% local, 56.1% state, and 21.1% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles. The district's equity score is 89/100, ranked #17 of 1044 in Texas against a state average of 50, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 231.7:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 45.3% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 35.1% Hispanic or Latino, 31.4% White, 23.5% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Alto H S, with a diversity index of 72.0/100.
Its largest campus is Alto El, enrolling 207 students (41% of the district's total enrollment).
Alto El accounts for 38.6% of all Alto Isd student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Alto Isd-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: combined. A single dominant campus often anchors a district's program offerings and staffing patterns; the share helps explain why district-wide averages may not reflect the typical neighbourhood-school experience. When one entity dominates a region's footprint, its programmatic and budget decisions effectively set policy for a majority of the affected population.
Alto Isd has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 76.2% of the population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch
free or reduced-price lunch eligibility is the federal threshold for Title I funding allocations, established under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015). Areas above 75% eligibility — including this one — receive concentration grants on top of the basic Title I formula. Regions with eligibility this high typically draw a substantially larger federal funding share relative to their local tax base, which can either offset or reinforce existing gaps depending on allocation policy.
Alto Isd student-counselor ratio is 232:1 — low (typically associated with meeting or exceeding the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommended 250:1 benchmark, which correlates with stronger college and career counseling capacity)
student-counselor ratio is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: the ratio counts FTE counselors against total enrollment, districts that contract intervention or social-emotional staff outside the counselor classification may be under-counted Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.
Alto Isd chronic absenteeism rate is 45.3% — well above typical (typically associated with unusually large scale or acute resource constraints)
chronic absenteeism rate is the simplest comparative metric but it does not capture the full picture: a student is chronically absent if they miss ≥10% of enrolled days for any reason, illness, family obligations, or disengagement Values this far above typical often signal acute resource constraints or a structurally different scale than most peers — worth reading alongside the underlying counts, not the ratio alone.