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records, no number is typed in by an editor. District totals are aggregated directly from the schools reporting under this district in the source records. See our
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Big Rapids, Michigan - 2 schools
393
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
-
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Mecosta-Osceola Isd operates 2 public schools serving 393 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Michigan. 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 Mecosta County.
The funding mix is 47.6% local, 40.6% state, and 11.8% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
and 33.1% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 74.3% White, 14.6% African American, 5.2% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Mecostaosceola Education Center, enrolling 121 students (88% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Pineview Homes, at 16 students, a 8x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Mecostaosceola Education Center accounts for 30.8% of all Mecosta-Osceola Isd student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Mecosta-Osceola Isd-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.
Mecosta-Osceola Isd has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 58.6% 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.
Mecosta-Osceola Isd chronic absenteeism rate is 33.1% — 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.