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Winton, California - 4 schools
An equity score of 71/100 ranks Winton #245 of 1517 districts in California (state average 50). Derived live from how evenly resources are distributed across the district's schools.
At $15,187 per pupil, Winton ranks #928 of 1862 California districts by per-pupil spending (California districts). NCES F-33 finance data.
1,904
Total Enrollment
4
Schools
$15,187
Per-Pupil Spending
Elementary, Middle
School Types
District-Level NCES Analysis
Winton operates 4 public schools serving 1,904 students, placing it among the smallest districts in California. The school portfolio breaks down into 3 elementary, 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 Merced County.
Per-pupil expenditure runs $15,187 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 5.3% local, 82.6% state, and 12.1% 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 71/100, ranked #245 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 451.8:1 student-counselor ratio, above both the ASCA benchmark and the roughly 408:1 national average, and 69.1% chronic absenteeism from the 2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection. Demographically, the student body averages 89.2% Hispanic or Latino, 5.5% White, 4.1% Asian across the district's schools. Its most demographically mixed campus is Winton Middle, with a diversity index of 24.9/100.
Its largest campus is Winton Middle, enrolling 579 students (32% of the district's total enrollment).
Winton Middle accounts for 30.4% of all Winton student enrollment
That dominant concentration means Winton-wide averages can mask substantial variation outside the dominant entity. Grade band: middle. 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.
Winton has higher-than-average Title I eligibility — 82.7% 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). Areas above 75% eligibility — including this one — receive concentration grants 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.
Winton student-counselor ratio is 452:1 — 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.
Winton chronic absenteeism rate is 69.1% — 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.