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Palmdale, California - 2 schools
An equity score of 85/100 ranks Wilsona Elementary #39 of 1517 districts in California (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $18,067 per pupil, Wilsona Elementary ranks #389 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
1,230
Total Enrollment
2
Schools
$18,067
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Wilsona Elementary operates 2 public schools serving 1,230 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 2 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 Los Angeles County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $18,067 according to the NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey, in the upper half of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending. See how California compares in our national per-pupil spending analysis. The funding mix is 15.4% local, 69.3% state, and 15.3% federal, a state-revenue-heavy mix that insulates the district somewhat from local property-tax volatility, though it ties funding to state budget cycles. The district's equity score is 85/100, ranked #39 of 1517 in California against a state average of 50, notably more even than the typical district in the state for how evenly funding reaches its schools.
a 434:1 student-counselor ratio, above both the ASCA benchmark and the roughly 408:1 national average, and 69.2% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 82.0% Hispanic or Latino, 9.4% White, 6.3% African American across the district's schools.
Its largest campus is Vista San Gabriel Elementary, enrolling 465 students (54% of the district's total enrollment).
Vista San Gabriel Elementary accounts for 37.8% of all Wilsona Elementary student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Wilsona Elementary-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.
Wilsona Elementary has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 89.6% of the population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch
free or reduced-price lunch eligibility is the federal threshold for Title I funding allocations, established under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA, 2015). Eligibility here is a supermajority of the population — well past the 75% concentration-grant threshold that unlocks extra funding on top of the basic Title I formula. Regions with eligibility this high typically draw a substantially larger federal funding share relative to their local tax base, which can either offset or reinforce existing gaps depending on allocation policy.
Wilsona Elementary student-counselor ratio is 434:1 — high (typically associated with staffing constraints that limit per-student counselor time; CRDC data shows higher ratios cluster in larger urban systems)
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 Higher values may reflect larger urban scale or recent resource constraints that have widened the gap.
Wilsona Elementary chronic absenteeism rate is 69.2% — 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.