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Petaluma, California - 2 schools
At $14,255 per pupil, Dunham Elementary ranks #1146 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
147
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$14,255
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Dunham Elementary operates 2 public schools serving 147 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 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 Sonoma County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $14,255 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 18.3% local, 76.5% state, and 5.2% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
a 175:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 17.6% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 69.8% White, 15.2% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Dunham Charter, enrolling 166 students (95% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Dunham Elementary, at 9 students, a 18x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Dunham Charter accounts for 94.9% of all Dunham Elementary student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Dunham Elementary a distant remainder — means Dunham 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.
Dunham Elementary student-counselor ratio is 175:1 — low (typically associated with meeting or exceeding the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommended 250:1 benchmark, which correlates with stronger college and career counseling capacity)
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 Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.
Dunham Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 17.6% — near the typical range (US average ~28) — aligned with the national post-pandemic baseline of roughly 28% chronic absenteeism
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 Variation between sub-units within Dunham Elementary is typically wider than the Dunham Elementary-aggregate figure suggests.