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Cardwell, Montana - 1 schools
At $16,235 per pupil, Cardwell Elem ranks #193 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
40
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$16,235
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Cardwell Elem operates 1 public schools serving 40 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. 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 Jefferson County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $16,235 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 44.2% local, 29.3% state, and 26.5% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
and 34.3% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 80.0% White, 5.7% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Cardwell School, enrolling 35 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Cardwell School accounts for 87.5% of all Cardwell Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Cardwell Elem a distant remainder — means Cardwell Elem-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.
Cardwell Elem chronic absenteeism rate is 34.3% — 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.