At $17,797 per pupil, Caliente Union Elementary ranks #853 of 1880 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
74
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$17,797
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Caliente Union Elementary operates 1 public schools serving 74 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 Kern County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $17,797 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 1880 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 21.7% local, 40.4% state, and 37.9% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
a 88:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 86.4% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 59.1% White, 31.8% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Piute Mountain Elementary, enrolling 44 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Piute Mountain Elementary accounts for 59.5% of all Caliente Union Elementary student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Caliente Union Elementary a distant remainder — means Caliente Union Elementary-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: elementary. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how the district allocates programs, capital, or staff. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
Caliente Union Elementary reports 70.3% free-lunch eligibility
The reported share sits between 62.5% and 75%, above a simple majority but below the highest descriptive band used here. Title I operates under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), but its statutory allocation uses additional LEA-level counts and rules not represented by this average. This percentage is an economic-need context measure; it does not establish a Title I award, show dollars received, or describe how funds are distributed among campuses.
Caliente Union Elementary student-counselor ratio is 88:1 — 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.
Caliente Union Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 86.4% — 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.