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
editorial standards & corrections policy, the
methodology behind these numbers, or
report a data error. Data current as of June 2026.
Trona, California - 2 schools
An equity score of 96/100 ranks Trona Joint Unified #5 of 1517 districts in California (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $28,916 per pupil, Trona Joint Unified ranks #69 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
247
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$28,916
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Trona Joint Unified operates 2 public schools serving 247 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 elementary, 1 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 San Bernardino County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $28,916 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 8.5% local, 62.4% state, and 29.1% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles. The district's equity score is 96/100, ranked #5 of 1517 in California against a state average of 50, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 129:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 60.5% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 58.5% White, 31.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.0% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Trona Elementary, enrolling 147 students (57% of the district's total enrollment).
Trona Elementary accounts for 57.0% of all Trona Joint Unified student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Trona Joint Unified a distant remainder — means Trona 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.
Trona Joint Unified has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 68.8% 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.
Trona Joint Unified student-counselor ratio is 129:1 — 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.
Trona Joint Unified chronic absenteeism rate is 60.5% — well above typical (typically associated with unusually large scale or acute resource constraints)
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 Values this far above typical often signal acute resource constraints or a structurally different scale than most peers — worth reading alongside the underlying counts, not the ratio alone.