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Kerkhoven, Minnesota - 2 schools
An equity score of 44/100 ranks Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg #248 of 410 districts in Minnesota (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $12,161 per pupil, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg ranks #416 of 504 Minnesota districts by per-pupil spending (Minnesota districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
824
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$12,161
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg operates 2 public schools serving 824 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Minnesota. The school portfolio breaks down into 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 Swift County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $12,161 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 504 Minnesota districts by per-pupil spending. See how Minnesota compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 15.1% local, 69.0% state, and 16.0% 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 44/100, ranked #248 of 410 in Minnesota 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 2 schools offering Advanced Placement (2 AP courses district-wide), a 388.5:1 student-counselor ratio, well above the ASCA benchmark though still under the roughly 408:1 national average, and 22.4% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 76.3% White, 19.3% Hispanic or Latino, 1.1% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Murdock Elementary, enrolling 395 students (51% of the district's total enrollment).
Murdock Elementary accounts for 47.9% of all Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg a distant remainder — means Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg-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.
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg student-counselor ratio is 389:1 — 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.
Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg chronic absenteeism rate is 22.4% — near the typical range (US average ~28) — aligned with the national post-pandemic baseline of roughly 28% chronic absenteeism
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 Variation between sub-units within Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg is typically wider than the Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg-aggregate figure suggests.