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Bakersfield, California - 4 schools
An equity score of 74/100 ranks Beardsley Elementary #178 of 1517 districts in California (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $18,079 per pupil, Beardsley Elementary ranks #388 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
1,941
Total Enrollment
4
Schools
$18,079
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Beardsley Elementary operates 4 public schools serving 1,941 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 3 elementary, 1 middle 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 Kern County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $18,079 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 23.0% local, 56.9% state, and 20.1% 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 74/100, ranked #178 of 1517 in California against a state average of 50, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
and 48.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 62.7% Hispanic or Latino, 26.2% White, 6.1% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is North Beardsley Elementary, with a diversity index of 54.5/100.
Its largest campus is North Beardsley Elementary, enrolling 757 students (38% of the district's total enrollment).
North Beardsley Elementary accounts for 38.1% of all Beardsley Elementary student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Beardsley Elementary-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: elementary. 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.
Beardsley Elementary has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 87.7% 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). Eligibility here is a supermajority of the population — well past the 75% concentration-grant threshold that unlocks extra funding 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.
Beardsley Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 48.5% — 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.