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Vaughn, Montana - 3 schools
At $13,066 per pupil, Vaughn Elem ranks #279 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
154
Total Enrollment
3
Schools
$13,066
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 $13,066 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the lower half of 394 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.
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 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.
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.