At $17,649 per pupil, Northwestern R-I ranks #82 of 552 Missouri districts by per-pupil spending (Missouri districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
168
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$17,649
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Northwestern R-I operates 2 public schools serving 168 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 Chariton County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $17,649 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 552 Missouri districts by per-pupil spending. See how Missouri compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 62.6% local, 21.4% state, and 16.0% 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 403.1:1 student-counselor ratio, well above the ASCA benchmark though still under the roughly 408:1 national average, and 9.3% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 99.0% White, 0.9% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Northwestern Elem., enrolling 82 students (60% of the district's total enrollment).
Enrollment across the district's NCES-reporting campuses fell 2.4% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (168 to 164 students), and the student-teacher ratio held roughly steady, per the NCES Common Core of Data annual universe files.
Of the district's $3,127,000 in reported FY2023 expenditures, 55.3% went to instruction, 35.5% to support services, and 1.7% to capital outlay, support-services-heavy relative to typical districts, reflecting spending on transportation, administration, or student services. Figures come from the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey's function-level breakdown, not the aggregate per-pupil figure above.
Northwestern Elem. accounts for 48.8% of all Northwestern R-I student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Northwestern R-I a distant remainder — means Northwestern R-I-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. Enrollment-weighted aggregates give this entity more weight than any smaller peer, while an unweighted entity average treats every record equally.
Northwestern R-I student-counselor ratio is 403:1 — 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.
Northwestern R-I chronic absenteeism rate is 9.3% — 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.