Every figure on PlainSchools is rendered directly from the source NCES, CRDC and F-33 federal
records, no number is typed in by an editor. District totals are aggregated directly from the schools reporting under this district in the source records. See our
editorial standards & corrections policy, the
methodology behind these numbers, or
report a data error. Data current as of June 2026.
Trinidad, California - 1 schools
At $35,200 per pupil, Big Lagoon Union Elementary ranks #44 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
15
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$35,200
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Big Lagoon Union Elementary operates 1 public schools serving 15 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 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 Humboldt County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $35,200 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 187 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 38.2% local, 55.4% state, and 6.4% 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 73.3% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 6.7% White across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Big Lagoon Elementary, enrolling 15 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Big Lagoon Elementary accounts for 100.0% of all Big Lagoon Union Elementary student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Big Lagoon Union Elementary a distant remainder — means Big Lagoon Union 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.
Big Lagoon Union Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 73.3% — 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.