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Ulm, Montana - 3 schools
At $9,646 per pupil, Ulm Elem ranks #380 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
138
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$9,646
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Ulm Elem operates 3 public schools serving 138 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 combined, 1 middle 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 Cascade County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $9,646 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the bottom 40 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 26.3% local, 59.9% state, and 13.8% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
and 38.4% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 92.7% White, 0.5% Hispanic or Latino, 0.5% African American across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Ulm Junior High, with a diversity index of 23.1/100.
Its largest campus is Ulm School, enrolling 69 students (61% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Ulm Junior High, at 15 students, a 5x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Ulm School accounts for 50.0% of all Ulm Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Ulm Elem a distant remainder — means Ulm Elem-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.
Ulm Elem school enrollment varies 4.6× across entities
Ulm Elem school enrollment ranges from 15 students (lowest) to 69 students (highest), a spread of 54 students. That relatively narrow ratio reflects an unusually homogeneous campus portfolio, most districts have a wider mix of school sizes. Per-school staffing ratios, programme availability, and capital-renovation cycles often diverge inside the same district based on enrollment shape.
Ulm Elem chronic absenteeism rate is 38.4% — 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.