Summary:
Zip code 56296 is home to just one high school, Wheaton Secondary, a small school of 175 students that serves grades 6–12 and belongs to the Wheaton Area Public School District. Because it is the only high school in the area, it is the default choice for local families, and its profile is genuinely mixed: strong completion outcomes sit alongside low test scores and a recent drop in its state ranking.
The strongest parts of the school are its completion metrics and staffing. Wheaton Secondary reports a 96.1% graduation rate and a 0.0% dropout rate for 2024–2025 — far better than the state’s 84.9% graduation rate and 4.2% dropout rate. The student-teacher ratio of 11.6 is relatively favorable, and 40.57% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. Science is the relative academic bright spot: proficiency is above the district in both years reported (26.09% vs. 23.19% in 2024–2025, and 16.3% vs. 11.5% in 2025–2026), though it remains below the state in the most recent year.
Academically, the school’s most recent results are weak. Math proficiency is 23.4% versus 44.9% statewide, a gap of 21.5 percentage points, and reading is 35.5% versus 48.6% statewide. Grade-level results vary widely: 7th grade is close to state levels in both math and reading, while 8th grade math (−27.5 points) and 8th grade reading (−24.1 points) lag well behind, and 11th grade math is just 12.5%. The school’s rank fell from 197th of 480 and 59th percentile (3 stars) in 2023–2024 to 356th of 473 and 25th percentile (1 star) in 2025–2026, and reading and science declined more steeply than the state. With only 175 students, year-to-year swings can be volatile.
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