At $20,864 per pupil, Ekalaka Elem ranks #122 of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
81
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$20,864
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Ekalaka Elem operates 2 public schools serving 81 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 1 middle 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 Carter County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $20,864 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 51.6% local, 25.9% state, and 22.5% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
a 128.3:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 32.9% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 88.8% White, 2.0% Hispanic or Latino, 1.4% Asian across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Ekalaka Elementary School, enrolling 69 students (73% of the district's total enrollment).
Ekalaka Elementary School accounts for 73.4% of all Ekalaka Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Ekalaka Elem a distant remainder — means Ekalaka Elem-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: combined. 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.
Ekalaka Elem student-counselor ratio is 128:1 — 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.
Ekalaka Elem chronic absenteeism rate is 32.9% — 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.