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Butler, Missouri - 2 schools
At $16,358 per pupil, Ballard R-Ii ranks #71 of 549 Missouri districts by per-pupil spending (Missouri districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
104
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$16,358
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Ballard R-Ii operates 2 public schools serving 104 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Missouri. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 1 elementary 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 Bates County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $16,358 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 549 Missouri districts by per-pupil spending. See how Missouri compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 45.7% local, 39.1% state, and 15.2% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
a 58:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 24.9% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 92.3% White, 4.3% Hispanic or Latino, 1.7% Asian across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Ballard High, enrolling 59 students (51% of the district's total enrollment).
Ballard High accounts for 50.9% of all Ballard R-Ii student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Ballard R-Ii a distant remainder — means Ballard R-Ii-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.
Ballard R-Ii student-counselor ratio is 58:1 — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
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 Values this far below typical often correlate with unusually small scale or population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se — worth checking whether the underlying denominator is itself an outlier.
Ballard R-Ii chronic absenteeism rate is 24.9% — near the typical range (US average ~28) — aligned with the national post-pandemic baseline of roughly 28% chronic absenteeism
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 Variation between sub-units within Ballard R-Ii is typically wider than the Ballard R-Ii-aggregate figure suggests.