At $23,813 per pupil, Mercer School District ranks #12 of 423 Wisconsin districts by per-pupil spending (Wisconsin districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
123
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$23,813
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Mercer School District operates 1 public schools serving 123 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Wisconsin. The school portfolio breaks down into 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 Iron County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $23,813 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 43 of 423 Wisconsin districts by per-pupil spending. See how Wisconsin compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 75.6% local, 10.6% state, and 13.7% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
Academic infrastructure includes 1 of 1 schools offering Advanced Placement (1 AP courses district-wide), a 92:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 20.7% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 89.1% White, 5.4% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Mercer School, enrolling 92 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Mercer School accounts for 74.8% of all Mercer School District student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Mercer School District a distant remainder — means Mercer School District-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.
Mercer School District reports 53.7% free-lunch eligibility
The reported share clears the 50% majority mark. Title I operates under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), but its statutory allocation uses additional LEA-level counts and rules not represented by this average. This percentage is an economic-need context measure; it does not establish a Title I award, show dollars received, or describe how funds are distributed among campuses.
Mercer School District student-counselor ratio is 92:1 — 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.
Mercer School District chronic absenteeism rate is 20.7% — near the typical range (US average ~28) — aligned with the national post-pandemic baseline of roughly 28% chronic absenteeism
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 Variation between sub-units within Mercer School District is typically wider than the Mercer School District-aggregate figure suggests.