Summary:
Butternut, Wisconsin is a small community served by two public schools in the Butternut School District: Butternut Elementary, which serves grades PK–5 with 84 students, and Butternut High, which serves grades 6–12 with 92 students. Both share the same address at 312 W Wisconsin St and enroll 176 students combined. The district ranks 353 out of 432 districts in Wisconsin — the 18th percentile, with 1 star — but the two schools' individual rankings tell different stories.
Butternut Elementary is currently the stronger performer: 456 out of 1,039 schools, the 56th percentile, with 3 stars, compared with Butternut High at 459 out of 533, the 14th percentile, with 1 star. Both were 4-star schools two years ago, so the high school's decline has been much steeper. Elementary strengths include chronic absenteeism of 6.9% — far below the state's 17.3% — plus ELA proficiency above state in grades 3, 4, and 5, and 4th-grade social studies at 81.82% versus 65.51% statewide. Math is the elementary school's weak spot, averaging roughly 45% proficient across grades 3–5 against a state average of about 53.1%.
Butternut High is not uniformly weak: its graduation rate of 91.6% and dropout rate of 1.2% are close to state figures, and its chronic absenteeism of 16.9% is slightly better than the state's 17.3%. Its low ranking is driven mainly by academics — math in grades 6–8 averaged roughly 36% versus about 54% statewide, and 2025–26 ACT results were 20% proficient in ELA and 0% in math and science. Both schools receive about $20,000 per student with student-teacher ratios below 8:1 and free/reduced lunch rates near 52%, so resources do not explain the gap. With such small enrollments, year-to-year swings should be read with caution.
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