$22,292 per pupil: Delaware school districts’ revenue in fiscal 2024–25, district by district

Revenue per pupil in 16 Delaware school districts, fiscal 2024–25: median $22,292, range $15,451 to $35,299. Every figure from DDOE public records, with what the figure includes and leaves out.

Half of the 16 Delaware school districts whose published school lists include schools below grade 6 and reaching grade 9 received revenue of more than $22,292 per pupil for fiscal 2024–25, and half received less. That middle figure, the median, comes from the Educational Statistics, Table 06 published by the Delaware Department of Education (DDOE). It is the most recent year DistrictFacts publishes for the state.

The lowest figure among those districts is $15,451 per pupil, at Delmar School District (1,445 students enrolled, 2024–25). The highest is $35,299, at Christina School District (13,162 students enrolled, 2024–25), about 2.3 times the lowest. The middle half of districts fall between $19,748 and $26,505.

Revenue per pupil, fiscal 2024–25: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest of 16 Delaware districts

Delmar School District
$15,451
Laurel School District
$19,194
Smyrna School District
$19,448
Milford School District
$19,614
Seaford School District
$19,792
Brandywine School District
$26,094
Red Clay Consolidated School District
$27,738
Cape Henlopen School District
$28,207
Colonial School District
$28,801
Christina School District
$35,299

10 of 16 districts shown: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest. Bars start at zero and the line marks the median of all 16, $22,292. Each bar links to the district’s page.

Delaware Department of Education (DDOE), Educational Statistics, Table 06, fiscal 2024–25

The largest district

Red Clay Consolidated School District is the largest Delaware system reporting this figure, with 15,968 students enrolled (2024–25). Its figure is $27,738 per pupil for fiscal 2024–25, 24% above the $22,292 median of the 16 districts compared here. The DistrictFacts homepage compares the same figure with a wider group: all 19 Delaware systems reporting it for the year, including the kinds of district left out here. That median is $23,639, and Red Clay Consolidated School District is 17% above it.

What “revenue per pupil” means in Delaware

In Delaware the figure is DDOE’s total revenue per pupil from Educational Statistics, Table 06: revenue from state, federal and local sources, divided by the fall official enrollment, as DDOE computes it. It is DDOE’s own published figure, not a division DistrictFacts makes. Revenue received is not what was spent. This article reports revenue, and the published definition lists no revenue category left out.

Each state defines its headline figure differently: Delaware reports revenue received per pupil, while other states report expenses or budgets using different pupil counts. The Delaware figure should not be set beside another state’s, and DistrictFacts does not rank states on it.

Which districts are counted

DistrictFacts publishes pages for 43 Delaware districts and other local education agencies. 19 of them report this figure for fiscal 2024–25. The median and the range above cover 16: regular school districts whose published school lists include schools below grade 6 and reaching grade 9. The other 3 are left out so that different kinds of district are not mixed in one median:

The remaining 24 have no published figure for the year. A missing or withheld figure is not counted as zero; it is left out of the median.

Among the figures absent for this period, 0 have a withheld entry and 24 are unreported in the published artifacts. Withheld and unreported are different statuses; neither is zero.

What this does not tell you

Revenue per pupil does not show how much a district spent or how it used the money, and it is not a measure of school quality. Districts differ in the students they serve, the services they must provide and their size. A change in revenue or in the enrollment used for the division changes the figure. This is one year of data and it says nothing about the trend. A useful question to ask a district is what revenue is included and how it has changed over time; each district page linked here shows the detail and the source file.

This report was generated from public records by the DistrictFacts Data Desk. Every figure in it is read from the Educational Statistics, Table 06 of the Delaware Department of Education (DDOE), as published on the district pages; none was typed by hand. The method is described on the DistrictFacts methodology page, and a correction can be requested from this story.

Sources

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