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Ness City, Kansas - 2 schools
An equity score of 48/100 ranks Ness City #139 of 250 districts in Kansas (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $14,393 per pupil, Ness City ranks #155 of 285 Kansas districts by per-pupil spending (Kansas districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
294
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$14,393
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Ness City operates 2 public schools serving 294 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Kansas. 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 Ness County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $14,393 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 285 Kansas districts by per-pupil spending. See how Kansas compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 27.3% local, 66.2% state, and 6.5% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles. The district's equity score is 48/100, ranked #139 of 250 in Kansas against a state average of 50, in line with the typical spread seen across the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 122:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 33.0% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 79.7% White, 18.8% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Ness City Elem, enrolling 155 students (56% of the district's total enrollment).
Ness City Elem accounts for 52.7% of all Ness City student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Ness City a distant remainder — means Ness City-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.
Ness City student-counselor ratio is 122:1 — 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.
Ness City chronic absenteeism rate is 33.0% — 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.