Summary:
Independence, Wisconsin is home to a single middle school: Independence Middle, which serves grades 6–8 and enrolls 101 students as part of the Independence School District. The school has a student-teacher ratio of 12.6, per-student spending of $17,609, and a free/reduced lunch rate of 60.4%, meaning it serves a majority economically disadvantaged population while receiving substantial per-pupil resources. Because it is the only middle school in the city, there is no local peer to compare it against; the meaningful benchmarks are district and state averages.
Attendance and dropout data are the school's clearest strengths. In 2024–25, chronic absenteeism at Independence Middle was 8.0%, less than half the district's 16.8% and the state's 17.3%. The dropout rate was 0.0%, better than both the district's 0.4% and the state's 1.1%. Academically, 2024–25 was also a relatively strong year: the school exceeded the state in five of eight listed tests, including 8th-grade ELA (8.53 points above state) and 8th-grade social studies (7.19 points above). Averaged across the listed tests, performance sat essentially at the state average.
That picture shifted in 2025–26, when none of the eight listed tests exceeded the state average and the school's simple average fell to roughly 6.9 points below the state. Eighth grade weakened notably: ELA fell from 62.50 to 46.88, social studies from 69.70 to 56.25, science from 54.55 to 43.75, and math from 57.58 to 50.00. Seventh-grade math is the relative bright spot, only 0.83 points below state, while 6th-grade math remains the largest gap at 11.29 points below. The school's rank slipped from the 52nd percentile in 2023–24, to 49th, to 35th in 2025–26, and the district is ranked 375th of 432 districts, in the 13th percentile with 1 star. With only 101 students, year-to-year swings can reflect small cohort changes as much as instructional shifts.
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