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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
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Joliet, Illinois - 1 schools
At $40,623 per pupil, Union Sd 81 ranks #5 of 848 Illinois districts by per-pupil spending (Illinois districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
115
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$40,623
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Union Sd 81 operates 1 public schools serving 115 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Illinois. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 elementary 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 Will County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $40,623 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the top 85 of 848 Illinois districts by per-pupil spending. See how Illinois compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 83.4% local, 10.4% state, and 6.2% federal, a local-revenue-heavy mix that leaves the district more exposed to property-tax swings and local ballot measures than state-funded peers.
and 7.0% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 46.2% Hispanic or Latino, 35.7% White, 9.1% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Union Elementary School, enrolling 143 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Union Elementary School accounts for 100.0% of all Union Sd 81 student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Union Sd 81 a distant remainder — means Union Sd 81-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.
Union Sd 81 chronic absenteeism rate is 7.0% — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
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 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.