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Ukiah, California - 11 schools
An equity score of 57/100 ranks Ukiah Unified #570 of 1517 districts in California (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $15,794 per pupil, Ukiah Unified ranks #777 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
5,840
Total Enrollment
11
Schools
$15,794
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Ukiah Unified operates 11 public schools serving 5,840 students, placing it among the smaller districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 7 elementary, 2 high, 1 middle, 1 combined schools, a compact enough portfolio that families can compare every campus directly before they move, rent, or enrol. These enrollment and school figures come from the NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) 2024-25 release, and the district is based in Mendocino County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $15,794 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 29.0% local, 56.8% state, and 14.2% 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 57/100, ranked #570 of 1517 in California against a state average of 50, in line with the typical spread seen across the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
Academic infrastructure includes 1 of 11 schools offering Advanced Placement (14 AP courses district-wide), a 379.4:1 student-counselor ratio, well above the ASCA benchmark though still under the roughly 408:1 national average, and 46.9% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 59.2% Hispanic or Latino, 29.2% White, 0.9% Asian across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Ukiah Independent Study Academy, with a diversity index of 60.6/100.
Its largest campus is Ukiah High, enrolling 1,767 students (30% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Ukiah Independent Study Academy, at 118 students, a 15x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Ukiah High accounts for 30.1% of all Ukiah Unified student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Ukiah Unified-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: high. 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.
Ukiah Unified school enrollment varies 15× across entities
Ukiah Unified school enrollment ranges from 118 students (lowest) to 1,767 students (highest), a spread of 1,649 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.
Ukiah Unified has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 69.6% 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.
Ukiah Unified student-counselor ratio is 379:1 — high (typically associated with staffing constraints that limit per-student counselor time; CRDC data shows higher ratios cluster in larger urban systems)
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
Ukiah Unified chronic absenteeism rate is 46.9% — 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.