Summary:
Marathon, Wisconsin is a small central Wisconsin community served by three public schools — Marathon Elementary (PK–5), Marathon Venture Academy (6–8), and Marathon High (9–12) — all part of the Marathon City School District, with a combined enrollment of 770 students. Every grade band is served by a single school, so each building has an outsized influence on the district's overall results.
Marathon High is the academic standout, ranking 69th of 533 high schools — the top 13% in Wisconsin — with 4 stars in all three years of rank history. It beats the state in every reported 2025–26 subject, including ACT English Language Arts (61.19% vs. 48.47% state), ACT Mathematics (56.72% vs. 42.93%), ACT Science (56.72% vs. 43.20%), and 10th-grade social studies (58.46% vs. 48.25%), and posts a 0.0% dropout rate. Its weakness is chronic absenteeism at 23.0%, well above the district's 14.2% and the state's 17.3%. Marathon Elementary has the best attendance in the group at 7.1% chronic absenteeism, plus strong 3rd- and 5th-grade math and ELA results, though its 4th grade slipped below state in ELA, math, and social studies in 2025–26. Marathon Venture Academy is uneven: its 8th grade is excellent (math 74.55%, science 72.73%, social studies 78.18%), while 6th- and 7th-grade ELA are well below state.
Two structural differences stand out for families. First, the Marathon City School District is rated 4 stars and 73rd percentile, but only the high school earns 4 stars — the elementary and middle schools are both 3 stars. Second, the middle school receives the lowest per-pupil spending ($11,172) and has the highest student-teacher ratio (15), versus $15,762 and 11.4 at the elementary and $16,097 and 13.0 at the high school. Free/reduced lunch is lowest at the high school (16.42%) and similar at the other two (about 27%). All proficiency figures in this data are exact percentages — none are suppressed.
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