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.
Searsport, Maine - 3 schools
An equity score of 79/100 ranks Rsu 20 #7 of 131 districts in Maine (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $25,205 per pupil, Rsu 20 ranks #26 of 203 Maine districts by per-pupil spending (Maine districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
451
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$25,205
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Rsu 20 operates 3 public schools serving 451 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Maine. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 1 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 Waldo County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $25,205 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 203 Maine districts by per-pupil spending. See how Maine compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 55.9% local, 39.6% state, and 4.5% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers. The district's equity score is 79/100, ranked #7 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 3 schools offering Advanced Placement (1 AP courses district-wide), a 132:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 60.6% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 96.2% White, 1.4% Hispanic or Latino, 0.6% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Searsport District High School, with a diversity index of 14.1/100.
Its largest campus is Searsport Elementary, enrolling 167 students (42% of the district's total enrollment).
Searsport Elementary accounts for 37.0% of all Rsu 20 student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Rsu 20-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: combined. 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 20 has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 52.0% 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). 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 20 student-counselor ratio is 132:1 — 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.
Rsu 20 chronic absenteeism rate is 60.6% — 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.