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Mercer, Missouri - 2 schools
At $16,806 per pupil, North Mercer Co. R-Iii ranks #59 of 549 Missouri districts by per-pupil spending (Missouri districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
145
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$16,806
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
North Mercer Co. R-Iii operates 2 public schools serving 145 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Missouri. 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 Mercer County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $16,806 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 549 Missouri districts by per-pupil spending. See how Missouri compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 53.7% local, 32.3% state, and 13.9% 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 71:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 14.3% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 92.5% White across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is North Mercer Elem., enrolling 84 students (59% of the district's total enrollment).
North Mercer Elem. accounts for 57.9% of all North Mercer Co. R-Iii student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of North Mercer Co. R-Iii a distant remainder — means North Mercer Co. R-Iii-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.
North Mercer Co. R-Iii has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 50.5% 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). Areas above 75% eligibility receive concentration grants on top of the basic Title I formula. 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.
North Mercer Co. R-Iii student-counselor ratio is 71:1 — 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.
North Mercer Co. R-Iii chronic absenteeism rate is 14.3% — low (typically associated with lower-than-average attendance disruption; districts in this range often have attendance interventions, robust transportation, or smaller catchments that reduce barriers)
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 Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.