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Dayton, Tennessee - 1 schools
An equity score of 29/100 ranks Dayton #107 of 140 districts in Tennessee (state average 38). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $10,618 per pupil, Dayton ranks #77 of 141 Tennessee districts by per-pupil spending (Tennessee districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
848
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$10,618
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Dayton operates 1 public schools serving 848 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Tennessee. 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 Rhea County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $10,618 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 141 Tennessee districts by per-pupil spending. See how Tennessee compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 25.2% local, 55.7% state, and 19.1% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles. The district's equity score is 29/100, ranked #107 of 140 in Tennessee against a state average of 38, notably less even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 445.5:1 student-counselor ratio, above both the ASCA benchmark and the roughly 408:1 national average, and 8.0% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 75.0% White, 15.2% Hispanic or Latino, 4.4% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Dayton City Elementary, enrolling 891 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Dayton City Elementary accounts for 100.0% of all Dayton student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Dayton a distant remainder — means Dayton-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.
Dayton student-counselor ratio is 446:1 — high (typically associated with staffing constraints that limit per-student counselor time; CRDC data shows higher ratios cluster in larger urban systems)
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
Dayton chronic absenteeism rate is 8.0% — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
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 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.