Summary:
Grantsburg School District in Wisconsin serves students from pre-kindergarten through 12th grade at four schools — Grantsburg Elementary (PK–3), Grantsburg Middle (4–8), Grantsburg High (9–12), and iForward, a K–12 alternative school — together enrolling about 1,831 students, with the district rated 302 of 432 statewide (30th percentile, 2 stars).
The single most important thing for parents to understand is how large iForward is: 1,030 students, roughly 56.3% of all enrollment and more than the other three schools combined. It also has the highest free/reduced lunch rate (60.29%), the lowest per-pupil spending ($10,075), the highest student/teacher ratio (24.2), and a reported 0.0% chronic absenteeism rate. Because it is so big, district-wide averages lean heavily toward iForward and can make the traditional schools look weaker than they are.
The traditional schools generally perform at or above the state. Grantsburg Elementary is the academic bright spot: 3rd-grade ELA was 78.57% proficient versus district 66.67% and state 52.08%, and 3rd-grade math was 75% versus district 63.77% and state 54.75%, with the smallest classes (10.8 students per teacher) and the highest spending ($16,046). Grantsburg Middle is the most consistent, above the state in 12 of 14 reported tests and averaging about 64.7%, roughly 9.4 points above the state, led by social studies, science, and math, though 6th-grade ELA (44.83%) and math (46.55%) fall below state. Grantsburg High improved from 1 star to 3 stars (53rd percentile) and posts the district's best graduation rate, 96.8%, with a 0.0% dropout rate; its chronic absenteeism is 16.6%. iForward averages 36.8% across 20 reported tests, about 16.4 points below the comparable state average, with an 80.3% graduation rate, though it shows gains from the prior year and above-state results in 7th- and 8th-grade ELA, 8th-grade social studies, and 8th-grade science. Its 0.0% absenteeism figure may reflect different reporting for an alternative program, and the middle school's 2.5% dropout rate should be read with caution.
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