Summary:
Benton, Wisconsin, is a small rural community whose public middle school system consists of just one school: Benton Middle, which serves grades 7–8 with 31 students and belongs to the Benton School District. Because there is only one middle school in the city, families can look to the state and the school's own prior years—rather than to other local middle schools—to judge how it is doing.
Benton Middle's strengths are concentrated in 8th grade. In 2025–2026, 8th grade science proficiency was 83.33% versus the state's 51.86%, and 8th grade social studies was 83.33% versus 64.63%. 8th grade math was 72.22%, well above the state's 53.67%, and 8th grade ELA was 61.11% versus 54.38%. Seventh grade is the concern: ELA and math were both 31.58% proficient, roughly 24 points below the state in each subject. Dropout was 0.0%, compared with Wisconsin's 1.1%, and chronic absenteeism was 9.7% versus the state's 17.3%.
Overall, the school's rank slipped from 4 stars and 70th–73rd percentile in 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 to 3 stars and 59th percentile in 2025–2026, in line with the mixed results above. About half of students (51.61%) qualified for free or reduced lunch, per-student spending was $35,964, and the student-teacher ratio was 11.8. With only 31 students in grades 7–8, a single student can move a grade-level percentage by several points, so year-to-year changes are best read as directional. The key question is whether the strong 8th grade results will continue as the current 7th graders move up.
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