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Chinook, Montana - 1 schools
At $12,100 per pupil, Bear Paw Elem ranks #317 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
12
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$12,100
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Bear Paw Elem operates 1 public schools serving 12 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined 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 Blaine County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $12,100 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 36.0% local, 50.3% state, and 13.7% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
and 10.0% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 90.0% White, 10.0% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Bear Paw School, enrolling 10 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Bear Paw School accounts for 83.3% of all Bear Paw Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Bear Paw Elem a distant remainder — means Bear Paw Elem-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.
Bear Paw Elem chronic absenteeism rate is 10.0% — low (typically associated with lower-than-average attendance disruption; districts in this range often have attendance interventions, robust transportation, or smaller catchments that reduce barriers)
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 Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.