At $27,005 per pupil, Garden County Schools ranks #16 of 244 Nebraska districts by per-pupil spending (Nebraska districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
193
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$27,005
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Garden County Schools operates 2 public schools serving 193 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Nebraska. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 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 Garden County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $27,005 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 25 of 244 Nebraska districts by per-pupil spending. See how Nebraska compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 71.4% local, 19.0% state, and 9.7% 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 96:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 49.2% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 81.0% White, 14.9% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Garden County Elementary Sch, enrolling 140 students (59% of the district's total enrollment).
Garden County Elementary Sch accounts for 59.3% of all Garden County Schools student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Garden County Schools a distant remainder — means Garden County Schools-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.
Garden County Schools reports 50.4% free-lunch eligibility
The reported share clears the 50% majority mark. Title I operates under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), but its statutory allocation uses additional LEA-level counts and rules not represented by this average. This percentage is an economic-need context measure; it does not establish a Title I award, show dollars received, or describe how funds are distributed among campuses.
Garden County Schools student-counselor ratio is 96:1 — 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.
Garden County Schools chronic absenteeism rate is 49.2% — 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.