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
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Fairmont, Minnesota - 4 schools
112
Total Enrollment
4
Schools
-
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Southern Plains Education Coop. operates 4 public schools serving 112 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Minnesota. The school portfolio breaks down into 4 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 Martin County.
The funding mix is 43.9% local, 35.2% state, and 20.9% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
a 47:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, . Demographically, the student body averages 71.7% White, 18.6% Hispanic or Latino, 2.9% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Southern Plains Education Coop., with a diversity index of 55.9/100.
Southern Plains Area Learning Cntr. accounts for 42.0% of all Southern Plains Education Coop. student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Southern Plains Education Coop.-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.
Southern Plains Education Coop. school enrollment varies 9.4× across entities
Southern Plains Education Coop. school enrollment ranges from 5 students (lowest) to 47 students (highest), a spread of 42 students. That spread reflects typical mixed-portfolio variation between specialty programs and large neighbourhood schools. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Southern Plains Education Coop. has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 72.9% 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.
Southern Plains Education Coop. student-counselor ratio is 47:1 — 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.
Comparisons are relative to Southern Plains Education Coop.'s own figures; each column derives from NCES Common Core of Data and the F-33 Finance Survey.
Nearby Districts in Minnesota
Top districts in the same state, compare side-by-side for enrollment, spending, and demographics.