Every figure on PlainSchools is rendered directly from the source NCES, CRDC and F-33 federal
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
editorial standards & corrections policy, the
methodology behind these numbers, or
report a data error. Data current as of June 2026.
Circle, Montana - 1 schools
At $11,116 per pupil, Vida Elem ranks #346 of 394 Montana districts by per-pupil spending (Montana districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
46
Total Enrollment
1
Schools
$11,116
Per-Pupil Spending
Combined
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Vida Elem operates 1 public schools serving 46 students, placing it among the smallest districts in Montana. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 combined 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 Mccone County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $11,116 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 44.0% local, 27.0% state, and 29.0% federal, a balanced mix across local, state, and federal sources, spreading budget risk across funding cycles rather than concentrating it in one.
a 43:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 18.6% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 62.8% White across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Vida School, enrolling 43 students (100% of the district's total enrollment).
Vida School accounts for 93.5% of all Vida Elem student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of Vida Elem a distant remainder — means Vida 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.
Vida Elem student-counselor ratio is 43:1 — well below typical (typically associated with unusually small scale or exceptionally high per-unit investment)
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 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.
Vida Elem chronic absenteeism rate is 18.6% — near the typical range (US average ~28) — aligned with the national post-pandemic baseline of roughly 28% chronic absenteeism
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 Variation between sub-units within Vida Elem is typically wider than the Vida Elem-aggregate figure suggests.