At $29,375 per pupil, Quemado Independent Schools ranks #15 of 143 New Mexico districts by per-pupil spending (New Mexico districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
168
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$29,375
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Quemado Independent Schools operates 3 public schools serving 168 students, placing it among the smallest districts in New Mexico. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 combined, 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 Catron County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $29,375 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 15 of 143 New Mexico districts by per-pupil spending. See how New Mexico compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 11.4% local, 61.8% state, and 26.8% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
and 52.8% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 64.0% White, 26.7% Hispanic or Latino, 0.5% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Quemado Elementary, with a diversity index of 58.0/100.
Its largest campus is Quemado High, enrolling 81 students (48% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Datil Elementary, at 16 students, a 5x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Enrollment across the district's NCES-reporting campuses held roughly steady from 2022-23 to 2023-24 (168 to 169 students, +0.6%), per the NCES Common Core of Data annual universe files.
Of the district's $5,114,000 in reported FY2023 expenditures, 49.8% went to instruction, 44% to support services, and 3.4% 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.
Quemado High accounts for 47.6% of all Quemado Independent Schools student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Quemado Independent Schools a distant remainder — means Quemado Independent Schools-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.
Quemado Independent Schools school enrollment varies 5.1× across entities
Quemado Independent Schools school enrollment ranges from 16 students (lowest) to 81 students (highest), a spread of 65 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous campus portfolio, most districts have a wider mix of school sizes. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
The reported share clears the 50% majority mark. 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.
Quemado Independent Schools chronic absenteeism rate is 52.8% — 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.