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Bells, Tennessee - 1 schools
An equity score of 43/100 ranks Bells #48 of 140 districts in Tennessee (state average 38). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $10,324 per pupil, Bells ranks #92 of 141 Tennessee districts by per-pupil spending (Tennessee districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
399
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$10,324
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Bells operates 1 public schools serving 399 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Tennessee. 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 Crockett County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $10,324 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 141 Tennessee districts by per-pupil spending. See how Tennessee compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 10.7% local, 65.3% state, and 24.0% 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 43/100, ranked #48 of 140 in Tennessee against a state average of 38, in line with the typical spread seen across the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 407:1 student-counselor ratio, well above the ASCA benchmark though still under the roughly 408:1 national average, and 4.7% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 62.4% White, 19.4% Hispanic or Latino, 16.0% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Bells Elementary, enrolling 407 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Bells Elementary accounts for 100.0% of all Bells student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Bells a distant remainder — means Bells-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.
Bells student-counselor ratio is 407:1 — high (typically associated with staffing constraints that limit per-student counselor time; CRDC data shows higher ratios cluster in larger urban systems)
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
Bells chronic absenteeism rate is 4.7% — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
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 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.