Summary:
Appleton, Wisconsin is home to nine high schools — all part of the Appleton Area School District — serving grades 9–12, with two schools also enrolling middle grades. Together they enroll 4,444 students. The three large comprehensive high schools — North High, East High, and West High — account for 3,897 students, about 87.7% of the total, while the six smaller schools share just 547 students. The district as a whole ranks 253 of 432 statewide, at the 41st percentile with 2 stars, but that average hides enormous differences between individual schools.
The academic standouts are small specialized schools. Tesla Engineering Charter School ranks 9 of 533 (98th percentile, 5 stars), with 100% graduation, 0.0% dropout, and 87.5% Math proficiency. Renaissance School ranks 11 of 533 (98th percentile, 5 stars), with 100% graduation and the highest ELA figure in the list at 90%. Fox Cities Leadership Academy ranks 23 of 533, climbing from the 45th to the 96th percentile in three years. Among large schools, North High is strongest at the 60th percentile, scoring above the district in all four subjects and essentially at the state level in Math. East High (34th percentile) and West High (24th percentile) trail, while Appleton Technical Academy sits at the 17th percentile and Valley New School ranks 57th with very mixed scores.
Money and class size don't line up simply with results. The top three schools spend the least ($8,146–$8,556 per student) and have the highest student-teacher ratios (35–41), while West ($17,110) and East ($16,413) spend more with lower outcomes. Appleton eSchool has the highest spending ($29,425), the smallest classes (7.2 ratio), and the lowest absenteeism (5.9%), but the highest dropout rate (6.2%), and no test scores are listed for it. Math is the weakest subject at most lower-ranked schools, and chronic absenteeism doesn't track achievement consistently — Renaissance achieves highly despite 28.5% absenteeism.
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