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Redding, California - 7 schools
An equity score of 57/100 ranks Gateway Unified #575 of 1517 districts in California (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $16,232 per pupil, Gateway Unified ranks #688 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
2,176
Total Enrollment
7
Schools
$16,232
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Gateway Unified operates 7 public schools serving 2,176 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 3 elementary, 2 high, 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 Shasta County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $16,232 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 46.5% local, 36.1% state, and 17.4% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one. The district's equity score is 57/100, ranked #575 of 1517 in California against a state average of 50, in line with the typical spread seen across the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
Academic infrastructure includes 1 of 7 schools offering Advanced Placement (6 AP courses district-wide), a 175.6:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 72.2% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 66.7% White, 13.8% Hispanic or Latino, 2.9% Asian across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Buckeye School of the Arts, with a diversity index of 61.6/100.
Its largest campus is Shasta Lake, enrolling 602 students (28% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Gateway Community Day, at 12 students, a 50x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Shasta Lake accounts for 27.7% of all Gateway Unified student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Gateway Unified-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.
Gateway Unified school enrollment varies 50× across entities
Gateway Unified school enrollment ranges from 12 students (lowest) to 602 students (highest), a spread of 590 students. That ratio is among the widest observed and reflects extreme enrollment heterogeneity, the district operates both small specialty programs and large comprehensive campuses inside a single budgeting unit. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Gateway Unified has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 73.2% 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). Eligibility here is approaching the 75% concentration-grant threshold; it does not yet unlock the extra funding tier but sits meaningfully above the baseline 50% majority mark. 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.
Gateway Unified student-counselor ratio is 176:1 — 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.
Gateway Unified chronic absenteeism rate is 72.2% — 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.