Enrollment
48
Maine · 2024-25 NCES data
Other / mixed grade configuration · Beals, ME
Beals Elementary School
Federal NCES profile for Beals Elementary School, including enrollment, faculty, free-lunch eligibility, demographics, and resource indicators - Resource Investment Index 43/100.
2024-25 NCES dataOther / mixed grade configurationNCES 230295000070
👥 S:T ratio 62
🌟 Gifted program 30
📋 Attendance 38
Scored 0–100 from federal NCES and CRDC indicators, resource allocation, not test scores. Full methodology →
The verdict
Beals Elementary School earns 43/100 on the Resource Investment Index, with class sizes smaller than 75% of Maine schools.
- 43
- Resource Index · Typical
- 9.6:1
- small classes for Maine
- 35.1%
- free-lunch eligible
- 48
- students enrolled
Beals Elementary School has class sizes smaller than 75% of Maine schools. Computed live against every Maine school reporting to NCES.
School address
District: Beals Public Schools · Maine
NCES ID 230295000070 Verify on NCES CCD record →
Teachers (FTE)
5.0
Federal CCD staff survey
Students per teacher
9.6:1
vs 11.1:1 Maine avg
-14% vs state
Free-lunch eligible
35.1%
vs 34.0% Maine avg
+3% vs state
Student-teacher ratio in context
How Beals Elementary School compares with Maine and U.S. medians
What stands out at Beals Elementary School
Small campus with unusually lean teacher staffing
Beals Elementary School sits near the smaller end of the Maine enrollment distribution while also reporting a lower student-teacher ratio than most state schools. That pairing is consistent with a compact, teacher-dense setting, though small scale can limit the number of specialized courses or support roles a campus can sustain. The program and staffing sections below show whether the lean ratio extends beyond classroom teachers into broader student services.
Need and resources require a component-level read
Beals Elementary School falls within the wide middle of the Maine distribution on both free-meal eligibility and the Resource Investment Index. Neither measure supplies an honest headline by itself. The useful distinctions are in the components: classroom staffing, counselor availability, attendance, gifted-program access, and district spending. Those fields can pull in opposite directions even when the overall percentile looks ordinary.
Attendance is the dominant support signal
Beals Elementary School's 25.0% chronic-absence rate is more consequential than a generic staffing label: at least one quarter of students missed 10% or more of school days in the 2021-22 collection. That level can affect instruction, counseling demand, and continuity even when other reported resources look ordinary. The dataset records the scale of absence but not its causes, so it should prompt a current-year question rather than a conclusion about school management.
Beals Elementary School is a small combined-grade school in Beals, Maine, enrolling 48 students.
Class sizes run a bit leaner than typical: 9.6:1 puts it in the smaller third of Maine schools by student-teacher ratio.
Its free-meal eligibility rate of 35.1% lands close to the Maine typical range, neither a high- nor low-need campus by this measure.
This is a small campus: fewer students than 94% of Maine schools, with 48 enrolled.
Its Resource Investment Index sits near the middle of the pack among 569 scored Maine schools.
Against 18 statewide peers matched on enrollment and economic need, it ranks mid-pack at #12.
Its student body is predominantly White (94% of enrollment) (diversity index 12/100).
Chronic absenteeism is elevated: 25.0% of students missed 10% or more of school days (2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection).
The surrounding Beals Public Schools spends $27,472 per pupil, 37% above the Maine average, a better-resourced district than most.
Beals Public Schools operates only this one school, so Beals Elementary School has no district-mates to compare against locally. At 48 students, it is also a small operation, on the smaller end of Maine's single-school districts.
Sourced from NCES CCD, CRDC, and F-33 (federal records, not a quality verdict). How we source and compute this.
Source: National Center for Education Statistics Common Core of Data + CRDC + F-33 · 2024-25
How Beals Elementary School compares
Beals Elementary School on the metrics families compare, against Maine and U.S. means.
| Metric | This school | vs Maine | Maine avg | U.S. avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Students per teacher | 9.6:1 | ▼ 14% | 11.1:1 | 15.7:1 |
| Free-lunch eligible | 35.1% | ▲ 3% | 34.0% | 51.7% |
| Enrollment | 48 | top 94% | - | - |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data School-level CCD + state/national means from Public School Universe · 2024-25
9.6:1
Leaner classes than 91% of US schools, among the more generously staffed nationally.
48
Bigger than 5% of US schools by enrollment, a small campus.
Equity indicators (what these measure)
Economic need
35.1%
free-lunch eligible
- 3% above the Maine average of 34.0%
Below the 40% Title I threshold; federal aid targets individual qualifying students rather than schoolwide programs.
Staffing depth
9.6:1
students per teacher
- 14% below state mean
Top 25% in Maine - lower ratio than 75% of state schools
Well under the widely cited 15:1 individualized-attention benchmark, among the leaner class loads nationally.
Engagement
25.0%
chronically absent (missed 10%+ of school days)
At or above 20%, the commonly used threshold for "high" chronic absenteeism, signaling significant barriers to regular attendance.
Funding equity
$27,472
per pupil, district-wide
- above Maine avg of $20,083
Well above the U.S. public-school average, reflecting substantially higher local or state investment per enrolled student.
Support staff
Counselors0.0 FTE
Student-support staffing from the Civil Rights Data Collection.
Discipline context
1
in-school suspensions + 0 out-of-school
Suspension rate: 2.1 per 100 students. Combined in-school and out-of-school rate: 2.1 per 100 students. Reported via the Civil Rights Data Collection.
Student demographics
White 93.8%
Two or More 4.2%
American Indian / Alaska Native 2.1%
Largest group: White at 93.8% of enrollment.
Student-body diversity index 11.8/100
Simpson diversity index - at 11.8, Beals Elementary School is less mixed than the Maine school average of 20.6.
Programs
Funding & spending
District-wide per-pupil expenditure for Beals Public Schools, which includes Beals Elementary School.
$27,472
Per student
+37%
vs Maine
Avg $20,083
+66%
vs U.S.
Avg $16,593
Revenue mix
Local 0.8%
State 85.0%
Federal 14.2%
Source: NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey District-level finance · FY 2021-22 Per-pupil expenditure reflects the district-wide average. Individual school budgets are not reported at the federal level.
Similar other schools statewide
Matched by enrollment size and by staffing ratio across all of Maine, not just this city - a different peer set than the local comparisons above.
Similar enrollment (~48 students)
Similar student-teacher ratio (~9.6:1)
Next steps
Verify locally before acting on Beals Elementary School's federal record.
- Compare Beals Elementary School against another school. Compare schools
- Beals Public Schools's spending and staffing shape this school. District profile
- Confirm current enrollment and boundaries with the school. Choosing guide
Federal record (CCD 2024-25, CRDC 2021-22) - PlainSchools assigns no subjective rating; the composite quality score is a transparent, reproducible index computed from this cited federal data.
Frequently asked questions about Beals Elementary School
How many students attend Beals Elementary School?
Beals Elementary School has 48 students enrolled. It is a public school in Beals, ME.
What is the student-teacher ratio at Beals Elementary School?
The student-teacher ratio at Beals Elementary School is 9.6:1, which is 14% lower than the Maine average of 11.1:1 and 39% lower than the national average of 15.7:1. Lower ratios generally mean more individual attention per student.
What percentage of students receive free lunch at Beals Elementary School?
35.1% of students at Beals Elementary School are eligible for free lunch, compared to the Maine average of 34.0%.
What is the racial and ethnic makeup of Beals Elementary School?
The largest demographic group at Beals Elementary School is White at 93.8% of enrollment, in Beals, ME.
What is the Resource Investment Index for Beals Elementary School?
Beals Elementary School has a Resource Investment Index of 43/100 (typical reported resources relative to schools nationally) based on 3 factors: student-teacher ratio, gifted-program reporting, chronic absenteeism. Not a test-score or academic measure (national median ~41/100, see methodology).
What other schools are in Beals Public Schools?
None reported; Beals Public Schools operates only Beals Elementary School as a public school district in NCES's records.
Related tools
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. Each school's figures reflect its most recent NCES/CRDC submission on file. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, or report a data error. Data current as of July 2026.