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Hollister, California - 1 schools
At $14,333 per pupil, Cienega Union Elementary ranks #1130 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
21
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$14,333
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Cienega Union Elementary operates 1 public schools serving 21 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 San Benito County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $14,333 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 39.0% local, 55.3% state, and 5.6% 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 47.6% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 61.9% White, 33.3% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Cienega Elementary, enrolling 21 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Cienega Elementary accounts for 100.0% of all Cienega Union Elementary student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Cienega Union Elementary a distant remainder — means Cienega 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.
Cienega Union Elementary has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 52.4% of the population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch
free or reduced-price lunch eligibility is the federal threshold for Title I funding allocations, established under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015). Areas above 75% eligibility receive concentration grants on top of the basic Title I formula. Regions with eligibility this high typically draw a substantially larger federal funding share relative to their local tax base, which can either offset or reinforce existing gaps depending on allocation policy.
Cienega Union Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 47.6% — 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.