At $12,383 per pupil, White Shield 85 ranks #161 of 168 North Dakota districts by per-pupil spending (North Dakota districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
188
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$12,383
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, High
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
White Shield 85 operates 2 public schools serving 188 students, placing it among the smallest districts in North Dakota. The school portfolio breaks down into 1 elementary, 1 high 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 Mclean County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $12,383 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, among the bottom 17 of 168 North Dakota districts by per-pupil spending. See how North Dakota compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 11.7% local, 69.8% state, and 18.5% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles.
a 43.5:1 student-counselor ratio, that meets the ASCA-recommended benchmark, and 51.8% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 2.2% Hispanic or Latino, 0.8% White across the district's schools.
White Shield Elementary School accounts for 62.2% of all White Shield 85 student enrollment
That is an overwhelming concentration, leaving the rest of White Shield 85 a distant remainder — means White Shield 85-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the largest entity. Grade band: elementary. 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.
White Shield 85 student-counselor ratio is 44:1 — 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.
White Shield 85 chronic absenteeism rate is 51.8% — well above typical (typically associated with unusually large scale or acute resource constraints)
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 above typical often signal acute resource constraints or a structurally different scale than most peers — worth reading alongside the underlying counts, not the ratio alone.