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Iola, Kansas - 4 schools
An equity score of 54/100 ranks Iola #110 of 250 districts in Kansas (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $14,011 per pupil, Iola ranks #177 of 285 Kansas districts by per-pupil spending (Kansas districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
1,207
Total Enrollment
4
Schools
$14,011
Per-Pupil Spending
High, Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Iola operates 4 public schools serving 1,207 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Kansas. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 high, 1 combined, 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 Allen County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $14,011 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 285 Kansas districts by per-pupil spending. See how Kansas compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 19.5% local, 71.5% state, and 9.0% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles. The district's equity score is 54/100, ranked #110 of 250 in Kansas against a state average of 50, in line with the typical spread seen across the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 196.9:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 47.4% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 81.0% White, 11.4% Hispanic or Latino, 1.0% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Iola High School Virtual, with a diversity index of 41.8/100.
Its largest campus is Iola Elementary School, enrolling 619 students (53% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Iola High School Virtual, at 22 students, a 28x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Iola Elementary School accounts for 51.3% of all Iola student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Iola a distant remainder — means Iola-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: combined. 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.
Iola school enrollment ranges from 22 students (lowest) to 619 students (highest), a spread of 597 students. That spread is wider than typical and predicts noticeable gaps in service quality between the highest and lowest areas. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Iola has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 50.1% 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). Areas above 75% eligibility receive concentration grants on top of the basic Title I formula. 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.
Iola student-counselor ratio is 197:1 — 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.
Iola chronic absenteeism rate is 47.4% — 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.