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Lame Deer, Montana - 2 schools
An equity score of 64/100 ranks Lame Deer Elem #12 of 141 districts in Montana (state average 38). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $19,212 per pupil, Lame Deer Elem ranks #139 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
382
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$19,212
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Lame Deer Elem operates 2 public schools serving 382 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 Rosebud County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $19,212 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 8.8% local, 31.0% state, and 60.2% federal, an unusually federal-heavy mix, typically a marker of concentrated Title I eligibility or a small district reliant on federal impact-aid programs. The district's equity score is 64/100, ranked #12 of 141 in Montana against a state average of 38, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 176.5:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, . Demographically, the student body averages 3.6% Hispanic or Latino, 0.2% Asian across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Lame Deer School, enrolling 278 students (79% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Lame Deer 7-8, at 75 students, a 4x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Lame Deer School accounts for 72.8% of all Lame Deer Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Lame Deer Elem a distant remainder — means Lame Deer 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.
Lame Deer Elem student-counselor ratio is 177:1 — 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.