Enrollment
10
Montana · 2024-25 NCES data
Other / mixed grade configuration · Birney, MT
Birney School
Federal NCES profile for Birney School, including enrollment, faculty, free-lunch eligibility, demographics, and resource indicators - Resource Investment Index 30/100.
2024-25 NCES dataOther / mixed grade configurationNCES 300399000093
👥 S:T ratio 60
🌟 Gifted program 30
📋 Attendance 0
Scored 0–100 from federal NCES and CRDC indicators, resource allocation, not test scores. Full methodology →
The verdict
Birney School earns 30/100 on the Resource Investment Index, with class sizes near the Montana median.
- 30
- Resource Index · Lower
- 10:1
- students per teacher
- 10
- students enrolled
Birney School has class sizes near the Montana median. Computed live against every Montana school reporting to NCES.
School address
Teachers (FTE)
1.0
Federal CCD staff survey
Students per teacher
10:1
vs 11.8:1 Montana avg
-15% vs state
Student-teacher ratio in context
How Birney School compares with Montana and U.S. medians
What stands out at Birney School
Small campus with unusually lean teacher staffing
Birney School sits near the smaller end of the Montana 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.
Attendance is the dominant support signal
Birney School's 50.0% 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.
Birney School is a small combined-grade school in Birney, Montana, enrolling 10 students.
Class sizes run a bit leaner than typical: 10:1 puts it in the smaller third of Montana schools by student-teacher ratio.
This is a small campus: fewer students than 91% of Montana schools, with 10 enrolled.
Its Resource Investment Index trails 91% of the 826 Montana schools with a score on record, one of the lower results on this measure.
Its student body is led by White (70%) and American Indian / Alaska Native (30%) (diversity index 42/100).
Chronic absenteeism is elevated: 50.0% of students missed 10% or more of school days (2021-22 Civil Rights Data Collection).
The surrounding Birney Elem spends $39,500 per pupil, 99% above the Montana average, a better-resourced district than most.
Its district draws 18.4% of revenue from federal sources, an above-typical federal share that tends to track a higher-need student population.
Birney Elem operates only this one school, so Birney School has no district-mates to compare against locally. At 10 students, it is also a small operation, on the smaller end of Montana'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 Birney School compares
Birney School on the metrics families compare, against Montana and U.S. means.
| Metric | This school | vs Montana | Montana avg | U.S. avg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Students per teacher | 10:1 | ▼ 15% | 11.8:1 | 15.7:1 |
| Enrollment | 10 | top 91% | - | - |
Source: NCES Common Core of Data School-level CCD + state/national means from Public School Universe · 2024-25
10:1
Leaner classes than 89% of US schools, among the more generously staffed nationally.
10
Bigger than 1% of US schools by enrollment, a small campus.
Equity indicators (what these measure)
Staffing depth
10:1
students per teacher
- 15% below state mean
Top 35% in Montana - lower ratio than 65% of state schools
Well under the widely cited 15:1 individualized-attention benchmark, among the leaner class loads nationally.
Engagement
50.0%
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
$39,500
per pupil, district-wide
- above Montana avg of $19,859
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
0
in-school suspensions + 0 out-of-school
Suspension rate: 0.0 per 100 students. Combined in-school and out-of-school rate: 0.0 per 100 students. Reported via the Civil Rights Data Collection.
Student demographics
White 70.0%
American Indian / Alaska Native 30.0%
Largest group: White at 70.0% of enrollment.
Student-body diversity index 42.0/100
Simpson diversity index - at 42.0, Birney School is more mixed than the Montana school average of 23.6.
Programs
Funding & spending
District-wide per-pupil expenditure for Birney Elem, which includes Birney School.
$39,500
Per student
+99%
vs Montana
Avg $19,859
+124%
vs U.S.
Avg $17,658
Revenue mix
Local 46.7%
State 34.8%
Federal 18.4%
Source: NCES F-33 School District Finance Survey District-level finance · FY 2022-23 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 Montana, not just this city - a different peer set than the local comparisons above.
Similar enrollment (~10 students)
Similar student-teacher ratio (~10:1)
Next steps
Verify locally before acting on Birney School's federal record.
- Compare Birney School against another school. Compare schools
- Birney Elem'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 Birney School
How many students attend Birney School?
Birney School has 10 students enrolled. It is a public school in Birney, MT.
What is the student-teacher ratio at Birney School?
The student-teacher ratio at Birney School is 10:1, which is 15% lower than the Montana average of 11.8:1 and 36% lower than the national average of 15.7:1. Lower ratios generally mean more individual attention per student.
What is the racial and ethnic makeup of Birney School?
The largest demographic group at Birney School is White at 70.0% of enrollment, in Birney, MT.
What is the Resource Investment Index for Birney School?
Birney School has a Resource Investment Index of 30/100 (lower 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 Birney Elem?
None reported; Birney Elem operates only Birney 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, the data changelog, or report a data error. Data current as of August 2026.