At $20,944 per pupil, Paterson School District ranks #83 of 311 Washington districts by per-pupil spending (Washington districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
142
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$20,944
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Paterson School District operates 1 public schools serving 142 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Washington. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 elementary 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 Benton County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $20,944 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 311 Washington districts by per-pupil spending. See how Washington compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 14.5% local, 79.7% state, and 5.7% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
and 3.7% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 66.4% White, 32.8% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Paterson Elementary School, enrolling 134 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Enrollment across the district's NCES-reporting campuses fell 2.8% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (142 to 138 students), and the student-teacher ratio held roughly steady, per the NCES Common Core of Data annual universe files.
Of the district's $3,225,000 in reported FY2023 expenditures, 46.2% went to instruction, 41.9% to support services, and 6.9% 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.
Paterson Elementary School accounts for 94.4% of all Paterson School District student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Paterson School District a distant remainder — means Paterson School District-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: elementary. 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.
Paterson School District reports 97.9% free-lunch eligibility
The reported share is above 87.5%, so economic need is widespread across the measured student population. 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.
Paterson School District chronic absenteeism rate is 3.7% — 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.