Mandan 1
Morton County, ND · Suburb · grades PK–12 · 4,456 students across 12 schools
- Spends $14,589 per student in operating costs — $16,028 once local price levels are accounted for.
- 62.8% of every operating dollar reaches instruction.
- 45.2% of revenue is raised locally, mostly from property tax.
The money
| Per student, as reported | $14,589 |
|---|---|
| Per student, price-adjusted Adjusted for the local price level, so it can be set against a district anywhere else. | $16,028 |
| Per student, excluding transport | $15,396 |
| Capital spending per student Buildings and land. Lumpy by nature. | Locked |
| Total revenue | Locked |
| Total current spending | Locked |
| Local price level (US = 100) Metro-area adjustment. | 91.0 |
Where the money goes
- Instruction 58.6% Locked
- Instructional staff support 4.3% Locked
- Student support 2.8% Locked
- Operations & maintenance 9.5% Locked
- Transportation 3.9% Locked
- Food service 4.9% Locked
- School administration 5.2% Locked
- District administration 3.5% Locked
- Other support 4.0% Locked
- Other current 8.2% Locked
What the money buys
| Students per teacher A staffing ratio, not an average class size. Real classes are larger than this everywhere. | 15.5 |
|---|---|
| Students per counselor | Locked |
| Cents of each operating dollar reaching classrooms | 62.8% |
| Administration share | 8.7% |
| Child poverty rate Children 5 to 17 in poverty inside the district boundary. | 10.7% |
| Enrollment change, 5 years | +10.3% |
Stability and risk
No stability flags raised.
Against the rest of ND
| Mandan 1 | ND average | |
|---|---|---|
| Per student, as reported | $14,589 | $20,180 |
| Reaching classrooms | 62.8% | 58.5% |
| Local share of revenue | 45.2% | 39.7% |
Average across 167 ND districts, unweighted by size.
Districts most like this one
Nearest neighbours on size, child poverty, the local price level and spending, over the same grade span. These are the fair comparisons, so we made each one a link.
These are the districts yours is fairly judged against. Where one of them does something differently, that is a question your board can answer at a meeting — it is not a reason to move.
Enrolling a child
Every “required” below links to the sentence it came from.
Is a seat at your zoned school guaranteed?
Living in the zone may not get you the seat
-
Due to capacity limitations, those who wait too long may be placed in a different school.
the district’s page this was read from
Quoted from this district’s own pages, read August 23, 2026. Wording changes between enrollment seasons — the school office is the only authority on whether a grade is full today.
A district that cannot promise a seat at your zoned school is describing a capacity decision: how many children each building holds, and where the boundary runs. Both are settled by the board in public. Which schools are full, and what the plan is for them, is a fair question to ask at a meeting.
- This is the district’s own published wording, not our summary of it. Policies are rewritten between enrollment seasons and a page can be out of date the day after we read it — the school office is the only authority on whether a particular grade at a particular school is full right now.
- A warning here is about capacity, not about your address. It does not mean your child will be moved; it means the district has told you in writing that it may move them.
- Required the page says so, and the sentence is quoted.
- Mentioned only it comes up, but not as a requirement — often a sentence saying the district cannot demand it.
- Not mentioned we read the page and it was not on it. That is not the same as "not required".
- Page not read we have no enrollment page for this district.
Documents to bring
| Mandan 1 | |
|---|---|
| Proof of residency | Required “Primary and Secondary Proof of Residency (click here for list of documents accepted)” |
| Proof of age (usually a birth certificate) | Required “Child’s Birth Certificate” |
| Immunisation records | Required “Current Immunization Record” |
| Physical examination | Not mentioned |
| Dental, vision or hearing screening | Not mentioned |
| Tuberculosis test | Not mentioned |
| Records from the previous school | Not mentioned |
| IEP or 504 plan | Not mentioned |
| Custody or guardianship paperwork | Not mentioned |
| Parent or guardian photo ID | Not mentioned |
| Home language survey | Not mentioned |
| Emergency contact information | Not mentioned |
| Proof of income | Not mentioned |
| Social security number Asked for by some districts. It is not required to enrol, and a school may not refuse a child who does not provide one. We list it because districts ask, not because you must answer. | Not mentioned |
How enrolling works
Locked 11 steps of the enrollment process — deadlines, appointments, proof of residency — are not shown. What to bring is above, and stays free.
- A blank row means the requirement did not appear on the district’s page. It does not mean the district will not ask for it — published lists are routinely incomplete, and the registrar has the final word.
- Requirements change every enrollment season. Check the district’s own page, linked above, before you gather anything.
- A district cannot condition enrollment on your child’s immigration status: under Plyler v. Doe (1982) every child resident in the district is entitled to a free public education. If a district asks for something that would reveal status, you are not obliged to provide it.
- If your family is in temporary or shared housing, the McKinney-Vento Act lets a child enrol immediately without the residency and records documents listed here. Ask for the district’s homeless liaison by name.
Who decides, and what it costs you
Every band above this one asks what this district spends. This one asks who chose to.
Mandan 1
The district levies its own school tax
This district raises property tax in its own name. Who sets the rate varies by state — an elected board in some, a public vote in others — but the levy is the school system’s own, and it is the part of a tax bill that school politics moves most directly.
| Mandan 1 | |
|---|---|
| School property tax levied, per student Only for districts that levy in their own name. Blank where the county or town levies instead — see the cards above, and read the next row. | $5,193 |
| Appropriated by the county or town, per student What the parent government handed the schools, for dependent systems. This is a general appropriation, not solely property tax. | — |
| Property tax as a share of all revenue How much of the budget rides on local property values, and therefore on local votes. | 27.1% |
| Long-term debt already owed, per student The balance at the end of the year, for scale. Repaid over decades, so it is a commitment made by earlier boards rather than a bill arriving now. | Locked |
| Debt service as a share of spending Interest plus principal repaid this year, against total spending. This is the part of the debt that is being paid now, out of money that would otherwise reach a classroom. | Locked |
| New long-term debt issued, per student Money borrowed during fiscal year 2024. What this figure does and does not tell you is set out under the table. | $5,634 |
- A figure in the borrowing row is not a bond voters approved. It records debt issued, and that includes refinancing existing debt at a new rate — which changes nothing about what a district owes — as well as certificates of participation and lease-revenue debt, which in many states a board can issue with no referendum at all. To find out what was actually on a ballot, check the county election office.
- Debt is repaid over decades. A large balance per student is a commitment made by earlier boards and earlier voters, not a bill arriving this year. The debt service row above it is the part being paid now.
Funding measures on the ballot
Mandan 1
We hold every school funding measure the state of ND published for 2018, 2020 and 2022, and this district appears in none of them.
What this state publishes: School district ballot questions from the North Dakota Secretary of State's results export, for the 26 elections that office lists back to June 2000. Ten of them carry a school layer at all — every June primary from 2010 on, plus the November generals of 2010 and 2022 — and nothing in the source says whether the empty years before that are years no district asked or years the layer does not reach. Elections held on their own date are missing entirely: only primaries and generals are archived here, so a district's September bond special is not in this file. This is thin coverage and the reason is worth stating plainly. The export records whatever the county auditor typed as the contest name, and nothing else — no ballot wording, no dollar amount, no outcome. Of the 107 school questions it holds, 64 ask whether the board may publish its proceedings in the newspaper, which is not a funding measure; 6 have no contest name at all; and 30 more are a bare label such as 'School District Measure 1', which the state's own biennial publication requirement makes most likely to be that same minutes question rather than a request for money. Those are left out rather than guessed at. That leaves 5 measures, in the four districts whose auditor wrote what was being asked. A North Dakota district shown with no measures may well have asked its voters for money; this source cannot say.
What this band does not answer yet
What they plan, and what they teach from
No state publishes what its districts teach from. This is the district’s own page, in its own words.
This district does not name the programmes it teaches from. That is the norm rather than the exception: no state requires a district to publish this, and most do not. The district office can tell you which reading and maths programmes are in use at a particular school.
- Programmes are only ever listed when the district names one in writing on its own site, and the sentence it used is shown beside it. We never infer a programme from a description of teaching style — “a balanced literacy approach” is not a curriculum, and printing it as one would invent an adoption the district never made.
- A plan document is listed as the district’s plan index listed it. We record that the document exists and where it is, not what it says.
The detailed figures for Mandan 1
The verdict, the headline dollar, the funding shares, who is served and every comparability caveat are free above, and stay free. What is behind the lock is the detail you would want before acting on any of it:
- capital spending per student, total revenue and total current spending
- the ten-line per-student breakdown of where the money goes
- counselor and administrator ratios, and the total salary bill
- the enrollment process — deadlines, appointments and proof of residency
- the debt behind the risk flags — per student, and as a share of spending
$1 for this district, for three months.
The 3-month unlock is a single payment and does not renew; it simply ends. A subscription renews, monthly or yearly as chosen, until you cancel. No account to create: this purchase is held in this browser, so clearing site data or moving to another browser loses it, and the phone apps sell their own unlock through their own store. What to do if you lose it.