Summary:
Beaver Dam High is the only public high school in the Beaver Dam Unified School District, serving grades 9–12 at 500 Gould St. in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, with 1,031 students. Because it is the district's sole high school, there is no second school to compare against; instead, the most useful comparisons are between the school, its own district averages, and statewide figures. The district itself is ranked 180 of 432 Wisconsin districts (58th percentile, 3 stars), while the high school holds a 2-star rating.
Graduation and dropout outcomes are the school's clearest strengths. The 2024–2025 graduation rate was 96.4%, essentially matching the district's 96.5% and 4.4 percentage points above the state's 92.0%, and the dropout rate was just 1.0%, equal to the district and slightly better than the state's 1.1%. The school's rank percentile has also climbed steadily — from 28th in 2023–2024 to 35th in 2024–2025 to 46th in 2025–2026 — even though the raw rank number barely moved, because the 2025–2026 comparison group was larger. Science is a relative bright spot at 43.58%, just above the state's 43.20%, and social studies at 47.83% is within half a point of both district and state. English language arts improved notably, from 42.86% to 46.33%, narrowing the gap with the state from 5.76 points to 2.14 points.
Two concerns stand out. Chronic absenteeism is 20.3%, well above the district's 14.2% and the state's 17.3% — roughly 1 in 5 students, or about 209 students. Math proficiency is the weakest academic area at 33.03%, about 9.90 points below the state's 42.93%, though the district average (32.88%) shows this is a district-wide pattern rather than a school-specific one. For context, 40.25% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch, per-student spending is $14,189, and the student–teacher ratio is 15:1.
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