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Willits, California - 1 schools
At $12,318 per pupil, La Vida Charter District ranks #1542 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
79
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$12,318
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
La Vida Charter District operates 1 public schools serving 79 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 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 Mendocino County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $12,318 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 23.4% local, 75.1% state, and 1.5% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
and 56.7% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 55.0% White, 30.0% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is La Vida Charter, enrolling 60 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
La Vida Charter accounts for 75.9% of all La Vida Charter District student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of La Vida Charter District a distant remainder — means La Vida Charter District-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.
La Vida Charter District has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 59.5% 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.
La Vida Charter District chronic absenteeism rate is 56.7% — 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.