At $26,909 per pupil, Melstone H S ranks #69 of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
33
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$26,909
Per-Pupil Spending
High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Melstone H S operates 1 public schools serving 33 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 high 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 Musselshell County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $26,909 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 33.1% local, 66.0% state, and 0.8% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
and 3.6% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 92.9% White across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Melstone High School, enrolling 28 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Melstone High School accounts for 84.8% of all Melstone H S student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Melstone H S a distant remainder — means Melstone H S-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: high. 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.
Melstone H S chronic absenteeism rate is 3.6% — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
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 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.