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South Paris, Maine - 10 schools
An equity score of 42/100 ranks Rsu 17/Msad 17 #85 of 131 districts in Maine (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $15,117 per pupil, Rsu 17/Msad 17 ranks #164 of 203 Maine districts by per-pupil spending (Maine districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
3,223
Total Enrollment
10
Schools
$15,117
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Rsu 17/Msad 17 operates 10 public schools serving 3,223 students, placing it among the smaller districts in Maine. The school portfolio breaks down into 7 combined, 1 high, 1 middle, 1 elementary 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 Oxford County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $15,117 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 45.4% local, 47.9% state, and 6.7% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one. The district's equity score is 42/100, ranked #85 of 131 in Maine 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 10 schools offering Advanced Placement (12 AP courses district-wide), a 383.7:1 student-counselor ratio, well above the ASCA benchmark though still under the roughly 408:1 national average, and 50.2% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 92.1% White, 3.2% Hispanic or Latino, 0.6% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Guy E Rowe School, with a diversity index of 21.9/100.
Its largest campus is Oxford Hills Comprehensive H S, enrolling 1,010 students (32% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Waterford Memorial School, at 77 students, a 13x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Oxford Hills Comprehensive H S accounts for 31.3% of all Rsu 17/Msad 17 student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Rsu 17/Msad 17-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: high. 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 17/Msad 17 school enrollment varies 13× across entities
Rsu 17/Msad 17 school enrollment ranges from 77 students (lowest) to 1,010 students (highest), a spread of 933 students. That spread reflects typical mixed-portfolio variation between specialty programs and large neighbourhood schools. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Rsu 17/Msad 17 student-counselor ratio is 384:1 — 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.
Rsu 17/Msad 17 chronic absenteeism rate is 50.2% — 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.