At $17,778 per pupil, Highwood K-12 ranks #165 of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
117
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$17,778
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Highwood K-12 operates 3 public schools serving 117 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 1 high, 1 middle 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 Chouteau County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $17,778 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 42.3% local, 49.2% state, and 8.5% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
a 353.4:1 student-counselor ratio, well above the ASCA benchmark though still under the roughly 408:1 national average, and 42.4% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 92.3% White, 1.8% African American, 1.3% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Highwood Middle School, with a diversity index of 27.7/100.
Its largest campus is Highwood School, enrolling 62 students (58% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Highwood Middle School, at 19 students, a 3x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Highwood School accounts for 53.0% of all Highwood K-12 student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Highwood K-12 a distant remainder — means Highwood K-12-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.
Highwood K-12 school enrollment varies 3.3× across entities
Highwood K-12 school enrollment ranges from 19 students (lowest) to 62 students (highest), a spread of 43 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous campus portfolio, most districts have a wider mix of school sizes. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Highwood K-12 student-counselor ratio is 353:1 — high (typically associated with staffing constraints that limit per-student counselor time; CRDC data shows higher ratios cluster in larger urban systems)
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
Highwood K-12 chronic absenteeism rate is 42.4% — 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.