Summary:
De Soto Area School District contains just one middle school: De Soto Middle, located at 615 Main St in De Soto, Wisconsin. It serves grades 6–8 and enrolls 101 students, with a student-teacher ratio of 13.4 and per-student spending of $13,384. About 45.54% of students are eligible for free or reduced lunch, so the school serves a substantially economically disadvantaged population.
De Soto Middle has been climbing in the state rankings: from 382nd of 641 middle schools (40th percentile, 2 stars) in 2023–2024, to 305th of 628 (51st percentile, 3 stars) in 2024–2025, and 236th of 643 (63rd percentile, 3 stars) in 2025–2026 — a 23-percentile-point gain. That places the school well above its own district, which ranks 297th of 432 districts statewide at the 31st percentile with 2 stars. In 2025–2026, students beat state proficiency in 6th grade Math (70% vs. 53.6%), 8th grade Science (67.65% vs. 51.86%), 6th grade ELA (66.67% vs. 54.95%), 7th grade Math (60.71% vs. 55.67%), and 8th grade ELA (58.82% vs. 54.38%).
Results are mixed by grade and subject. 8th grade Math is the clearest concern: proficiency fell from 61.29% to 44.12%, now 9.55 points below the state. 7th grade ELA also slipped below state (46.43% vs. 55.33%), while 8th grade Social Studies (64.71%) sits essentially at the state average of 64.63%. Chronic absenteeism is an outstanding strength at 4.9%, far below the district's 9.9% and the state's 17.3%. The dropout rate is 1.4%, slightly above the district's 0.9% and the state's 1.1%. Because grade-level results compare different groups of students from year to year, some of the largest swings may reflect cohort differences rather than a school-wide change. Overall, De Soto Middle shows real momentum in rank, attendance, and several tested subjects, with 8th grade Math and 7th grade ELA as the areas to watch.
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