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Wadena, Minnesota - 5 schools
188
Total Enrollment
5
Schools
-
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Freshwater Education District operates 5 public schools serving 188 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Minnesota. The school portfolio breaks down into 5 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 Wadena County.
The funding mix is 47.0% local, 22.7% state, and 30.4% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
a 13:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 74.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 85.1% White, 7.9% Hispanic or Latino, 1.1% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Early Childhood Special Education, with a diversity index of 42.8/100.
Its largest campus is Freshwater Education District Alc, enrolling 101 students (51% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Elm Tree Academy, at 9 students, a 11x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Freshwater Education District Alc accounts for 50.5% of all Freshwater Education District student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Freshwater Education District a distant remainder — means Freshwater Education District-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.
Freshwater Education District school enrollment varies 11× across entities
Freshwater Education District school enrollment ranges from 9 students (lowest) to 101 students (highest), a spread of 92 students. That spread reflects typical mixed-portfolio variation between specialty programs and large neighbourhood schools. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Freshwater Education District has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 59.6% 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.
Freshwater Education District student-counselor ratio is 13:1 — 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.
Freshwater Education District chronic absenteeism rate is 74.5% — 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.
Comparisons are relative to Freshwater Education District's own figures; each column derives from NCES Common Core of Data and the F-33 Finance Survey.
Nearby Districts in Minnesota
Top districts in the same state, compare side-by-side for enrollment, spending, and demographics.
How many schools are in Freshwater Education District?
Freshwater Education District has 5 schools, including 5 combined. Total enrollment is 188 students.
What is the demographic composition of Freshwater Education District?
Freshwater Education District students are 85.1% White, 7.9% Hispanic or Latino, 1.1% African American, 0.2% Asian, averaged across 5 schools. Source: NCES CCD Membership 2024-25.