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Santa Cruz, California - 1 schools
At $15,183 per pupil, Happy Valley Elementary ranks #929 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
120
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$15,183
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Happy Valley Elementary operates 1 public schools serving 120 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 elementary 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 Santa Cruz County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $15,183 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 77.7% local, 16.8% state, and 5.6% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
and 31.1% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 78.1% White, 7.6% Hispanic or Latino, 1.0% Asian across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Happy Valley Elementary, enrolling 106 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Happy Valley Elementary accounts for 88.3% of all Happy Valley Elementary student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Happy Valley Elementary a distant remainder — means Happy Valley Elementary-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.
Happy Valley Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 31.1% — 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.