About This Chart
This scatter plot visualizes relationships between school district metrics. Each point represents one school district, colored by its legal classification. Hover over points to see district names and exact values.
District Types:
- Big Five: Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Yonkers are fiscally dependent on their cities. New York City is also a Big Five district but its school data is not yet included at the district level—NYC city-level financial data is available from the ACFR.
- Small City: Districts in smaller cities (population under 125,000) with some fiscal dependency on their municipal government.
- Central: The most common type (~550 districts), typically serving rural and suburban areas with full K-12 programs.
- Union Free: Independent districts that may serve only elementary grades, with students attending other districts for high school.
- Common: The oldest form of school district in NY, governed by trustees rather than a board of education. Only 10 remain, ranging from 7 to 229 students. Despite the name, these are not one-room schoolhouses—they operate modern facilities but retain the historic "common school" designation.
Data Note: Kiryas Joel Village Union Free School District appears as an extreme outlier ($385k per pupil) because it operates exclusively as a special education provider. Most children in Kiryas Joel attend private religious schools; the public district provides special education services, transportation, and supplies to private school students. Its 176-student enrollment counts only those in the public special education program, while expenditures cover services for the broader community.
Data sourced from the NYS Comptroller's Office. See Methodology for details.