Every figure on PlainSchools is rendered directly from the source NCES, CRDC and F-33 federal
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
editorial standards & corrections policy, the
methodology behind these numbers, or
report a data error. Data current as of June 2026.
Mendocino, California - 6 schools
An equity score of 75/100 ranks Mendocino Unified #165 of 1517 districts in California (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $27,577 per pupil, Mendocino Unified ranks #81 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
462
Total Enrollment
6
Schools
$27,577
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Mendocino Unified operates 6 public schools serving 462 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 3 elementary, 2 high, 1 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 Mendocino County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $27,577 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 187 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 73.3% local, 22.2% state, and 4.5% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers. The district's equity score is 75/100, ranked #165 of 1517 in California against a state average of 50, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
Academic infrastructure includes 1 of 6 schools offering Advanced Placement (6 AP courses district-wide), a 365.9:1 student-counselor ratio, well above the ASCA benchmark though still under the roughly 408:1 national average, and 49.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 72.8% White, 13.9% Hispanic or Latino, 2.8% Asian across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Albion Elementary, with a diversity index of 62.8/100.
Its largest campus is Mendocino K-8, enrolling 241 students (54% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Mendocino Sunrise High, at 7 students, a 34x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Mendocino K-8 accounts for 52.2% of all Mendocino Unified student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Mendocino Unified a distant remainder — means Mendocino Unified-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: elementary. 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.
Mendocino Unified school enrollment varies 34× across entities
Mendocino Unified school enrollment ranges from 7 students (lowest) to 241 students (highest), a spread of 234 students. That ratio is among the widest observed and reflects extreme enrollment heterogeneity, the district operates both small specialty programs and large comprehensive campuses inside a single budgeting unit. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Mendocino Unified has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 62.5% 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). Eligibility here is approaching the 75% concentration-grant threshold; it does not yet unlock the extra funding tier but sits meaningfully above the baseline 50% majority mark. 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.
Mendocino Unified student-counselor ratio is 366:1 — high (typically associated with staffing constraints that limit per-student counselor time; CRDC data shows higher ratios cluster in larger urban systems)
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
Mendocino Unified chronic absenteeism rate is 49.5% — well above typical (typically associated with unusually large scale or acute resource constraints)
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 above typical often signal acute resource constraints or a structurally different scale than most peers — worth reading alongside the underlying counts, not the ratio alone.