At $27,521 per pupil, Pryor Elem ranks #61 of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
71
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$27,521
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Pryor Elem operates 2 public schools serving 71 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 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 Big Horn County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $27,521 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 10.5% local, 42.4% state, and 47.1% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
a 38:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 48.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 3.6% White, 1.8% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Arrow Creek Elem School, enrolling 55 students (72% of the district's total enrollment).
Enrollment across the district's NCES-reporting campuses grew 12.7% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (71 to 80 students), while the student-teacher ratio tightened by 0.8 students per teacher, per the NCES Common Core of Data annual universe files.
Of the district's $2,496,000 in reported FY2023 expenditures, 32.2% went to instruction, 38.5% to support services, and 21.6% to capital outlay, a capital-heavy year, consistent with active construction, renovation, or major equipment purchases. Figures come from the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey's function-level breakdown, not the aggregate per-pupil figure above.
Arrow Creek Elem School accounts for 72.4% of all Pryor Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Pryor Elem a distant remainder — means Pryor Elem-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. 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.
Pryor Elem student-counselor ratio is 38:1 — 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.
Pryor Elem chronic absenteeism rate is 48.5% — well above typical (typically associated with unusually large scale or acute resource constraints)
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 above typical often signal acute resource constraints or a structurally different scale than most peers — worth reading alongside the underlying counts, not the ratio alone.