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Lambert, Montana - 2 schools
At $20,198 per pupil, Lambert Elem ranks #127 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
79
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$20,198
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Lambert Elem operates 2 public schools serving 79 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 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 Richland County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $20,198 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 13.9% local, 75.0% state, and 11.1% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
a 42.5:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 29.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 91.3% White, 3.4% Asian, 0.8% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Lambert School, enrolling 66 students (78% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Lambert 7-8, at 19 students, a 3x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Lambert School accounts for 77.6% of all Lambert Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Lambert Elem a distant remainder — means Lambert Elem-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.
Lambert Elem student-counselor ratio is 43:1 — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
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 Values this far below typical often correlate with unusually small scale or population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se — worth checking whether the underlying denominator is itself an outlier.
Lambert Elem chronic absenteeism rate is 29.5% — 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 Lambert Elem is typically wider than the Lambert Elem-aggregate figure suggests.