$14,464 per long-term weighted pupil: Vermont school districts’ budgeted education spending in fiscal 2026, district by district

Budgeted education spending per long-term weighted pupil in 45 Vermont school districts, fiscal 2026: median $14,464, range $11,139 to $17,352. Every figure from AOE public records, with what the figure includes and leaves out.

Half of the 45 Vermont school districts whose published school lists span elementary and high school grades budgeted education spending of more than $14,464 per long-term weighted pupil for fiscal 2026, and half budgeted less. That middle figure, the median, comes from the Classifying School Districts by Size and Type of Education Offered report published by the Vermont Agency of Education (AOE). It is the most recent year DistrictFacts publishes for the state.

The lowest figure among those districts is $11,139 per long-term weighted pupil, at Enosburgh-Richford Unified Union School District #88 (1,093 students in the fall enrollment headcount, 2024–25). The highest is $17,352, at Mountain Views Unified Union School District #76 (1,020 students in the fall enrollment headcount, 2024–25), about 1.6 times the lowest. The middle half of districts fall between $13,515 and $15,256.

Budgeted education spending per long-term weighted pupil, fiscal 2026: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest of 45 Vermont districts

Enosburgh-Richford Unified Union School District #88
$11,139
Quarry Valley Unified Union School District #70
$11,191
Barre Unified Union School District #97
$11,476
Slate Valley Unified Union School District #62
$11,565
Elmore-Morristown Unified Union School District #90
$12,130
Windham Southeast Unified Union School District #96
$15,851
Craftsbury Town School District
$15,879
Hartford School District
$16,035
Canaan School District
$16,962
Mountain Views Unified Union School District #76
$17,352

10 of 45 districts shown: the 5 lowest and the 5 highest. Bars start at zero and the line marks the median of all 45, $14,464. Each bar links to the district’s page.

Vermont Agency of Education (AOE), Classifying School Districts by Size and Type of Education Offered report, fiscal 2026

The largest district

Champlain Valley Unified Union School District #56 is the largest Vermont system reporting this figure, with 4,022 students in the fall enrollment headcount (2024–25). Its figure is $15,535 per long-term weighted pupil for fiscal 2026, 7% above the $14,464 median of the 45 districts compared here. The DistrictFacts homepage compares the same figure with a wider group: all 119 Vermont systems reporting it for the year, including the kinds of district left out here. That median is $13,833, and Champlain Valley Unified Union School District #56 is 12% above it.

What “budgeted education spending per long-term weighted pupil” means in Vermont

In Vermont the figure is budgeted education spending per long-term weighted pupil: the part of the district’s voted budget paid from the statewide Education Fund, after offsetting revenues, divided by its long-term weighted average daily membership (LTW ADM), as AOE computes it. LTW ADM uses Act 127 weighting. A weighted pupil is not a student; the fall enrollment headcounts shown here are separate and are not the divisor. It is a budget, not actual spending. The figure belongs to the district of residence and includes tuition the district pays for its students at other public and approved independent schools. It is not comparable with AOE’s earlier per-equalized-pupil series.

Each state defines its headline figure differently: Vermont reports a budgeted amount divided by a long-term weighted pupil count, rather than an unweighted student headcount. The Vermont 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 130 Vermont districts and other local education agencies. 119 of them report this figure for fiscal 2026. The median and the range above cover 45: regular school districts whose published school lists span elementary and high school grades. The other 74 are left out so that different kinds of district are not mixed in one median:

Of the remaining 11, 3 have a figure only for an earlier year and 8 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 8 are unreported in the published artifacts. Withheld and unreported are different statuses; neither is zero.

What this does not tell you

A budgeted amount per long-term weighted pupil does not show actual spending or how money was used, 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 the voted budget, offsetting revenues or the long-term weighted pupil count 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 its budget includes and how its weighted pupil count has changed; 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 Classifying School Districts by Size and Type of Education Offered report of the Vermont Agency of Education (AOE), 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

Browse