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Cairo, Illinois - 2 schools
An equity score of 66/100 ranks Cairo Usd 1 #4 of 763 districts in Illinois (state average 38). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $23,674 per pupil, Cairo Usd 1 ranks #76 of 848 Illinois districts by per-pupil spending (Illinois districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
302
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$23,674
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Cairo Usd 1 operates 2 public schools serving 302 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Illinois. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 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 Alexander County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $23,674 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 85 of 848 Illinois districts by per-pupil spending. See how Illinois compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 17.9% local, 49.2% state, and 32.9% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one. The district's equity score is 66/100, ranked #4 of 763 in Illinois against a state average of 38, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 139:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 41.9% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 76.0% African American, 12.2% White, 1.8% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Cairo Elementary School, enrolling 148 students (53% of the district's total enrollment).
Cairo Elementary School accounts for 49.0% of all Cairo Usd 1 student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Cairo Usd 1 a distant remainder — means Cairo Usd 1-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.
Cairo Usd 1 student-counselor ratio is 139:1 — 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.
Cairo Usd 1 chronic absenteeism rate is 41.9% — high (typically associated with higher-than-average disruption; recent CRDC data showed elevated rates persisting after pandemic-era schooling changes)
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.