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Petaluma, California - 2 schools
At $25,286 per pupil, Laguna Joint Elementary ranks #110 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
16
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$25,286
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Laguna Joint Elementary operates 2 public schools serving 16 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 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 Marin County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $25,286 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 187 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 65.1% local, 29.5% state, and 5.3% 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 36.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 88.9% Hispanic or Latino, 11.1% White across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Laguna Elementary, enrolling 9 students (56% of the district's total enrollment).
Laguna Elementary accounts for 56.3% of all Laguna Joint Elementary student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Laguna Joint Elementary a distant remainder — means Laguna Joint 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.
Laguna Joint Elementary has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 55.6% 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.
Laguna Joint Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 36.5% — 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.