A number that is surprisingly hard to come by, as it doesn’t appear anywhere on the school district website that I’ve seen, is exactly how many students there are currently in the North East School District. It was interesting to see a page, included in the backup documents for the upcoming school board meeting on June 18th, that gives the exact number for the elementary, middle and high schools. The total number of students: 601+332+454=1387.
In a previous article, I had calculated the spending per student by dividing the proposed budget by the number of students using a number I had which was higher than the actual number, so, in reality, per student spending is higher.
The number in the final budget is slightly lower than in the proposed budget, so the new calculation is:
$32,014,477 divided by 1387 equals $23,081.81 per student.
For those of you interested in this topic, this information gives you a place to start if you wish to look into it further. Spending per student varies a great deal across the country and by district. There is no direct correlation connecting spending and student outcomes. More money, often has little effect. The question for each of us is, are we getting our money’s worth?
