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.
Madison, Maine - 3 schools
An equity score of 86/100 ranks Rsu 59/Msad 59 #2 of 131 districts in Maine (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $21,498 per pupil, Rsu 59/Msad 59 ranks #52 of 203 Maine districts by per-pupil spending (Maine districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
575
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$21,498
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Rsu 59/Msad 59 operates 3 public schools serving 575 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Maine. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined, 1 high, 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 Somerset County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $21,498 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 39.8% local, 41.0% state, and 19.2% 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 86/100, ranked #2 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 191.7:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 56.9% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Use the school table below to drill into any individual campus for its own demographic and resource profile.
Its largest campus is Madison Elementary School, enrolling 239 students (42% of the district's total enrollment).
Madison Elementary School accounts for 41.6% of all Rsu 59/Msad 59 student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Rsu 59/Msad 59-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 59/Msad 59 has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 54.8% 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 59/Msad 59 student-counselor ratio is 192:1 — 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 59/Msad 59 chronic absenteeism rate is 56.9% — 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.