Every figure on PlainSchools is rendered directly from the source NCES, CRDC and F-33 federal
records, no number is typed in by an editor. District totals are aggregated directly from the schools reporting under this district in the source records. See our
editorial standards & corrections policy, the
methodology behind these numbers, or
report a data error. Data current as of June 2026.
Unity, Maine - 8 schools
An equity score of 74/100 ranks Rsu 03/Msad 03 #18 of 131 districts in Maine (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $17,252 per pupil, Rsu 03/Msad 03 ranks #113 of 203 Maine districts by per-pupil spending (Maine districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
1,070
Total Enrollment
8
Schools
$17,252
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Rsu 03/Msad 03 operates 8 public schools serving 1,070 students, placing it among the smaller districts in Maine. The school portfolio breaks down into 4 combined, 2 elementary, 1 high, 1 middle schools, a compact enough portfolio that families can compare every campus directly before they move, rent, or enrol. These enrollment and school figures come from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 release, and the district is based in Waldo County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $17,252 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 203 Maine districts by per-pupil spending. See how Maine compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 40.6% local, 50.9% state, and 8.4% 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 74/100, ranked #18 of 131 in Maine against a state average of 50, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
Academic infrastructure includes 1 of 8 schools offering Advanced Placement (3 AP courses district-wide), a 212.2:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 62.4% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 92.3% White, 3.3% Hispanic or Latino, 0.7% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Morse Memorial School, with a diversity index of 18.6/100.
Its largest campus is Mt View Elementary School, enrolling 273 students (28% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Unity Elementary School, at 13 students, a 21x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Mt View Elementary School accounts for 25.5% of all Rsu 03/Msad 03 student enrollment
That concentration means Rsu 03/Msad 03-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.
Rsu 03/Msad 03 school enrollment varies 21× across entities
Rsu 03/Msad 03 school enrollment ranges from 13 students (lowest) to 273 students (highest), a spread of 260 students. That spread is wider than typical and predicts noticeable gaps in service quality between the highest and lowest areas. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Rsu 03/Msad 03 has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 61.2% 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). Areas above 75% eligibility receive concentration grants on top of the basic Title I formula. 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.
Rsu 03/Msad 03 student-counselor ratio is 212:1 — low (typically associated with meeting or exceeding the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommended 250:1 benchmark, which correlates with stronger college and career counseling capacity)
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 Lower values often correlate with smaller scale and population characteristics rather than higher resource budgets per se.
Rsu 03/Msad 03 chronic absenteeism rate is 62.4% — 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.