Estes Park School District R-3

What the Numbers Say About Estes Park School District R-3

Estes Park School District R-3 is a small school district in Colorado, serving 1,058 students at an estimated per-pupil spending of $16,129. Estimated average teacher salary — derived from instructional expenditure variable Z33 divided by teacher FTE — is $81,947, placing the district in the moderately funded tier of NCES F-33 respondents. NCES LEAID 0803810 references the FY2022 Common Core of Data Local Education Agency Finance Survey.

Relative to the Colorado statewide average of $73,266, teacher pay in Estes Park School District R-3 runs meaningfully above the state benchmark — a 11.8% gap, and near the national instructional-salary estimate of $82,292 (0.4% differential). Among enrolling districts in Colorado, it pays more than 80% of them. Licensing reciprocity, collective bargaining strength, and state aid formulas all contribute to where a district lands in these tiers.

On the budget side, Estes Park School District R-3 reports $17.1M in total expenditure against $18.9M in revenue, with instructional salaries accounting for 34% of spending — a compensation-to-budget ratio that signals how much of each tax dollar reaches classroom educators. Regular-program teacher salary outlay is $4.3M, special-education teacher pay is $0.5M. These figures are district-level aggregates from F-33, not individual contracts — step-and-column schedules, stipends, and collectively-bargained differentials sit underneath these totals.