At $30,848 per pupil, San Ardo Union Elementary ranks #85 of 1880 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
79
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$30,848
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 $30,848 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 188 of 1880 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).
Enrollment across the district's NCES-reporting campuses grew 8.9% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (79 to 86 students), while the student-teacher ratio widened by 1.4 students per teacher, per the NCES Common Core of Data annual universe files.
Of the district's $2,590,000 in reported FY2023 expenditures, 51.5% went to instruction, 35.6% to support services, and 1.2% to capital outlay, support-services-heavy relative to typical districts, reflecting spending on transportation, administration, or student services. Figures come from the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey's function-level breakdown, not the aggregate per-pupil figure above.
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 largest entity. Grade band: elementary. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how the district allocates programs, capital, or staff. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
San Ardo Union Elementary reports 70.9% free-lunch eligibility
The reported share sits between 62.5% and 75%, above a simple majority but below the highest descriptive band used here. Title I operates under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015), but its statutory allocation uses additional LEA-level counts and rules not represented by this average. This percentage is an economic-need context measure; it does not establish a Title I award, show dollars received, or describe how funds are distributed among campuses.
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.