At $36,702 per pupil, Medicine Lake K-12 Schools ranks #27 of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
84
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$36,702
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Medicine Lake K-12 Schools operates 3 public schools serving 84 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 1 high, 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 Sheridan County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $36,702 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 40 of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 50.4% local, 40.7% state, and 8.9% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
a 58.7:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 34.9% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 83.4% White, 7.5% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Medicine Lake 7-8, with a diversity index of 41.4/100.
Its largest campus is Medicine Lake School, enrolling 47 students (53% of the district's total enrollment).
Medicine Lake School accounts for 53.4% of all Medicine Lake K-12 Schools student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Medicine Lake K-12 Schools a distant remainder — means Medicine Lake K-12 Schools-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. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
Medicine Lake K-12 Schools school enrollment varies 2.9× across entities
Medicine Lake K-12 Schools school enrollment ranges from 16 students (lowest) to 47 students (highest), a spread of 31 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous campus portfolio, most districts have a wider mix of school sizes. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Medicine Lake K-12 Schools student-counselor ratio is 59:1 — 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.
Medicine Lake K-12 Schools chronic absenteeism rate is 34.9% — 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.