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St. Joseph, Louisiana - 2 schools
An equity score of 84/100 ranks Tensas Parish #6 of 175 districts in Louisiana (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $24,720 per pupil, Tensas Parish ranks #11 of 188 Louisiana districts by per-pupil spending (Louisiana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
347
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$24,720
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Tensas Parish operates 2 public schools serving 347 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Louisiana. 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 Tensas Parish.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $24,720 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 19 of 188 Louisiana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Louisiana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 37.8% local, 22.8% state, and 39.4% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one. The district's equity score is 84/100, ranked #6 of 175 in Louisiana against a state average of 50, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 150.5:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 18.7% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 86.4% African American, 8.6% White, 2.6% Hispanic or Latino across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Tensas Elementary School, enrolling 154 students (51% of the district's total enrollment).
Tensas Elementary School accounts for 44.4% of all Tensas Parish student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Tensas Parish-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.
Tensas Parish has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 82.7% 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). Areas above 75% eligibility — including this one — receive concentration grants on top of the basic Title I formula. 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.
Tensas Parish student-counselor ratio is 151:1 — 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.
Tensas Parish chronic absenteeism rate is 18.7% — 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 Tensas Parish is typically wider than the Tensas Parish-aggregate figure suggests.