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Arbuckle, California - 5 schools
An equity score of 40/100 ranks Pierce Joint Unified #1014 of 1517 districts in California (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $12,244 per pupil, Pierce Joint Unified ranks #1555 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
1,490
Total Enrollment
5
Schools
$12,244
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Pierce Joint Unified operates 5 public schools serving 1,490 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 elementary, 2 high, 1 middle 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 Colusa County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $12,244 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 35.1% local, 57.1% state, and 7.8% 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 40/100, ranked #1014 of 1517 in California against a state average of 50, notably less even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
Academic infrastructure includes 1 of 5 schools offering Advanced Placement (6 AP courses district-wide), a 388.7:1 student-counselor ratio, well above the ASCA benchmark though still under the roughly 408:1 national average, and 22.8% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 82.3% Hispanic or Latino, 14.6% White, 0.8% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Grand Island Elementary, with a diversity index of 37.0/100.
Its largest campus is Arbuckle Elementary, enrolling 604 students (42% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Arbuckle Alternative High (Continuation), at 10 students, a 60x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Arbuckle Elementary accounts for 40.5% of all Pierce Joint Unified student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Pierce Joint Unified-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: elementary. 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.
Pierce Joint Unified school enrollment varies 60× across entities
Pierce Joint Unified school enrollment ranges from 10 students (lowest) to 604 students (highest), a spread of 594 students. That ratio is an extreme outlier spread — among the widest gaps observed anywhere in this dataset. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Pierce Joint Unified has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 64.0% 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). Eligibility here is approaching the 75% concentration-grant threshold; it does not yet unlock the extra funding tier but sits meaningfully above the baseline 50% majority mark. 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.
Pierce Joint Unified student-counselor ratio is 389:1 — 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.
Pierce Joint Unified chronic absenteeism rate is 22.8% — 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 Pierce Joint Unified is typically wider than the Pierce Joint Unified-aggregate figure suggests.