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Gardiner, Montana - 1 schools
At $31,438 per pupil, Gardiner H S ranks #36 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
56
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$31,438
Per-Pupil Spending
High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Gardiner H S operates 1 public schools serving 56 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 high 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 Park County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $31,438 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 40 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 59.5% local, 26.5% state, and 14.0% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
Academic infrastructure includes 1 of 1 schools offering Advanced Placement (1 AP courses district-wide), a 55:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 32.7% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 85.5% White, 5.5% Hispanic or Latino, 1.8% Asian across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Gardiner High School, enrolling 55 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Gardiner High School accounts for 98.2% of all Gardiner H S student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Gardiner H S a distant remainder — means Gardiner H S-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: high. 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.
Gardiner H S student-counselor ratio is 55:1 — 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.
Gardiner H S chronic absenteeism rate is 32.7% — 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.