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Dunning, Nebraska - 2 schools
At $31,178 per pupil, Sandhills Public Schools ranks #7 of 244 Nebraska districts by per-pupil spending (Nebraska districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
82
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$31,178
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Sandhills Public Schools operates 2 public schools serving 82 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Nebraska. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 combined 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 Blaine County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $31,178 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 25 of 244 Nebraska districts by per-pupil spending. See how Nebraska compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 76.2% local, 16.4% state, and 7.3% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
a 134:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 29.4% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 90.6% White, 8.4% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Elementary School at Halsey, enrolling 50 students (60% of the district's total enrollment).
Elementary School at Halsey accounts for 59.5% of all Sandhills Public Schools student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Sandhills Public Schools a distant remainder — means Sandhills Public Schools-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.
Sandhills Public Schools student-counselor ratio is 134:1 — 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.
Sandhills Public Schools chronic absenteeism rate is 29.4% — near the typical range (US average ~28) — aligned with the national post-pandemic baseline of roughly 28% chronic absenteeism
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 Variation between sub-units within Sandhills Public Schools is typically wider than the Sandhills Public Schools-aggregate figure suggests.