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San Ardo, California - 1 schools
At $25,634 per pupil, San Ardo Union Elementary ranks #106 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
79
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$25,634
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
San Ardo Union Elementary operates 1 public schools serving 79 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 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 Monterey County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $25,634 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 187 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 38.4% local, 41.4% state, and 20.2% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
and 31.6% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 93.4% Hispanic or Latino, 2.6% White across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is San Ardo Elementary, enrolling 76 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
San Ardo Elementary accounts for 96.2% of all San Ardo Union Elementary student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of San Ardo Union Elementary a distant remainder — means San Ardo Union Elementary-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.
San Ardo Union Elementary has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 70.9% 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). Eligibility here is approaching the 75% concentration-grant threshold; it does not yet unlock the extra funding tier but sits meaningfully above the baseline 50% majority mark. 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.
San Ardo Union Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 31.6% — high (typically associated with higher-than-average disruption; recent CRDC data showed elevated rates persisting after pandemic-era schooling changes)
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.