Attendance · School
Mendota Junior High
35 empty seats, every school day.
On an average day in 2024–25, about 35 of Mendota Junior High's 612 students were not in school. The state pays Mendota Unified for students who attend, so those empty seats were worth about $581k to the district that year.
2024–25. Attendance funding goes to Mendota Unified, so the empty seats are valued at the district's dollars per student. Method and sources at the foot of the page.
Enrolled, but not in school
Each bar is everyone enrolled that year. The blue part is how many were in school on an average day; the red part is how many were not.
What the empty seats are worth
California pays a school's district for each student in school on an average day (its Average Daily Attendance, or ADA). Each empty seat, valued at that year's dollars per ADA:
What better attendance would bring
Attendance rate is the share of enrolled students in school on an average day. Move the slider to a higher rate: how many more seats would be filled, and what would Mendota Unified receive?
Mendota Junior High's attendance rate in 2024–25 was 94.3%. Each point is worth the same wherever it starts, since it is a point of every enrolled student's days.
Who is missing
Some students carry far more of it
Why days are missed
Of the days Mendota Junior High students missed in 2024–25, 32% were unexcused, 61% excused (illness, appointments), 1% were independent study work not completed, and 6% were suspensions. In 2018–19, before COVID, 34% were unexcused. Unexcused absence, where no reason is given, is the kind most likely to reflect a student choosing not to come.
Students who left
Mendota Junior High has 178 more students than in 2014–15. Its district, Mendota Unified, has 26.4% more. Had Mendota Junior High changed at the district's pace it would have about 549; it has 612. A school's enrollment also moves with boundaries, programs and new schools nearby, so read this as a prompt to ask why rather than as a verdict. It has kept pace, so the opportunity is students who are enrolled and not coming.
How we worked it out
- Absent on an average day = every day of school missed by every student that year, divided by 180 school days. In school = census-day enrollment minus that. For 2024–25 this gives about 577 students in school on an average day.
- Attendance rate = students in school on an average day ÷ students enrolled.
- Dollars per ADA = LCFF revenue that year divided by funded ADA, from CDE's LCFF Summary Data: Mendota Unified's, since the district is paid for its schools' students. It includes the extra grants for low-income students and English learners, so it is what an added student brings, not the statewide base rate.
- Years. The absence collection began in 2017–18, and some districts' figures jump the next year in a way that looks like a change in recording, so this page starts in 2018–19. 2019–20 has no attendance data (COVID). 2020–21 was mostly distance learning, when attendance meant something different.
- Chronically absent is CDE's measure: a student who missed at least 10% of the days they were enrolled.
- Sources: California Department of Education: Absenteeism by Reason and Chronic Absenteeism (DataQuest downloads), Census Day Enrollment, LCFF Summary Data, CAASPP research files and Free or Reduced Price Meal files.
The numbers behind the first two charts
| Year | Enrolled | Days missed | Absent, average day | In school | Funded ADA | $ per ADA | Value of empty seats |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018–19 | 520 | 4,788 | 27 | 493 | — | $11,839 | $315k |
| 2020–21 | 562 | 4,916 | 27 | 535 | — | $12,141 | $332k |
| 2021–22 | 560 | 10,961 | 61 | 499 | — | $13,370 | $814k |
| 2022–23 | 576 | 7,671 | 43 | 533 | — | $15,163 | $646k |
| 2023–24 | 602 | 6,467 | 36 | 566 | — | $16,457 | $591k |
| 2024–25 | 612 | 6,288 | 35 | 577 | — | $16,627 | $581k |