At $12,708 per pupil, Vaughn Elem ranks #300 of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
154
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$12,708
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Vaughn Elem operates 3 public schools serving 154 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 $12,708 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 393 Montana districts by per-pupil spending. See how Montana compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 23.4% local, 46.3% state, and 30.2% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
and 31.6% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 86.2% White, 3.2% Hispanic or Latino, 0.4% Asian across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Vaughn School, with a diversity index of 42.8/100.
Its largest campus is Vaughn School, enrolling 93 students (68% of the district's total enrollment). Its smallest is Hillcrest Colony Elementary, at 11 students, a 8x enrollment spread across the district's campuses.
Enrollment across the district's NCES-reporting campuses fell 7.1% between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (154 to 143 students), and the student-teacher ratio held roughly steady, per the NCES Common Core of Data annual universe files.
Of the district's $2,429,000 in reported FY2023 expenditures, 40.8% went to instruction, 31.7% to support services, and 17.9% to capital outlay, a capital-heavy year, consistent with active construction, renovation, or major equipment purchases. Figures come from the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey's function-level breakdown, not the aggregate per-pupil figure above.
Vaughn School accounts for 60.4% of all Vaughn Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Vaughn Elem a distant remainder — means Vaughn Elem-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: combined. The share measures enrollment concentration only; it does not establish how the district allocates programs, capital, or staff. Because it contains a majority of the affected population, enrollment-weighted aggregates will sit closer to this entity's reported fields than to those of smaller peers; an unweighted entity count answers a different question.
Vaughn Elem school enrollment varies 8.5× across entities
Vaughn Elem school enrollment ranges from 11 students (lowest) to 93 students (highest), a spread of 82 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.
Vaughn Elem chronic absenteeism rate is 31.6% — 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.