Cost per Student

Many sites purport to compare the cost per student among various school districts. Many, even most, simply take the district's entire budget and divide it by the number of students. It's one measure.

The tax levy divided by the number of students is another measure.

When you use the entire budget and not just the tax levy, it will look like the 'cost' has gone up under scenarios including districts which receive significant aid, grant money, other funds that pass through the district with no impact, etc. - anything that isn't the tax levy. These budget items impact every school district differently.* North Shore has reduced the percent of its budget covered by the tax levy to about 82% - lower than it's been in decades. (See proposed budget narratives on district website.)

When you use the entire budget, you also include the expense for buses, textbooks, health care, and special education services for students who live in our district but attend private schools. However, you are only dividing that budget by the number of students in our schools - not all the students covered by the budget. Again, every district is impacted differently by these figures.

Separately, we can also ask what we get for our budget. See that list here.

*For example, our district is home to St. Christopher's. The cost in the budget for those students is nearly $500,000 but it is entirely covered by other sources. If you divide the entire budget by our students, you would think there's roughly $200 per student added by that line. But no. That number is on both sides of the budget - costs and revenue. However, it is not in the tax levy.