At $20,071 per pupil, Max 50 ranks #47 of 168 North Dakota districts by per-pupil spending (North Dakota districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
155
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$20,071
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Max 50 operates 2 public schools serving 155 students, placing it among the smallest districts in North Dakota. 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 Mclean County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $20,071 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 168 North Dakota districts by per-pupil spending. See how North Dakota compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 31.4% local, 50.9% state, and 17.7% 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 67.5:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 31.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 88.7% White, 2.2% Hispanic or Latino, 1.5% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Max Elementary School, enrolling 72 students (53% of the district's total enrollment).
Enrollment across the district's NCES-reporting campuses fell 7.1% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (155 to 144 students), and the student-teacher ratio tightened by 0.6 students per teacher as staffing held steadier than enrollment, per the NCES Common Core of Data annual universe files.
Of the district's $3,504,000 in reported FY2023 expenditures, 47.1% went to instruction, 32.6% to support services, and 7.2% to capital outlay, a fairly typical instruction/support/capital split for a public school district. Figures come from the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey's function-level breakdown, not the aggregate per-pupil figure above.
Max Elementary School accounts for 46.5% of all Max 50 student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Max 50 a distant remainder — means Max 50-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: combined. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how the district allocates programs, capital, or staff. Enrollment-weighted aggregates give this entity more weight than any smaller peer, while an unweighted entity average treats every record equally.
Max 50 student-counselor ratio is 68:1 — 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.
Max 50 chronic absenteeism rate is 31.5% — 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.