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Mad River, California - 4 schools
At $27,876 per pupil, Southern Trinity Joint Unified ranks #78 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
84
Total Enrollment
4
Schools
$27,876
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Southern Trinity Joint Unified operates 4 public schools serving 84 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 elementary, 2 high 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 Trinity County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $27,876 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 32.3% local, 52.7% state, and 15.0% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
a 105:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 34.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 64.0% White, 6.6% Hispanic or Latino, 2.5% Asian across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Southern Trinity High, with a diversity index of 61.3/100.
Its largest campus is Van Duzen Elementary, enrolling 54 students (74% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Mt. Lassic High (Continuation), at 2 students, a 27x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Van Duzen Elementary accounts for 64.3% of all Southern Trinity Joint Unified student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Southern Trinity Joint Unified a distant remainder — means Southern Trinity Joint Unified-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.
Southern Trinity Joint Unified school enrollment varies 27× across entities
Southern Trinity Joint Unified school enrollment ranges from 2 students (lowest) to 54 students (highest), a spread of 52 students. That spread is wider than typical and predicts noticeable gaps in service quality between the highest and lowest areas. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Southern Trinity Joint Unified student-counselor ratio is 105:1 — 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.
Southern Trinity Joint Unified chronic absenteeism rate is 34.5% — 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.
Comparisons are relative to Southern Trinity Joint Unified's own figures; each column derives from NCES Common Core of Data and the F-33 Finance Survey.
Nearby Districts in California
Top districts in the same state, compare side-by-side for enrollment, spending, and demographics.