Hartland-Lakeside J3 School District

Hartland-Lakeside J3 School District is a small, high-performing PK–8 district in Wisconsin with three schools serving 1,091 students in total. North Elementary serves grades PK–2 with 405 students, South Elementary serves grades 3–5 with 332 students, and North Shore Middle serves grades 6–8 with 354 students. No high school is included in this data. The district ranks 28th of 432 Wisconsin districts — the 94th percentile — and holds 5 stars.

North Shore Middle is the academic engine of the district, ranking 12th of 643 schools statewide in 2025–2026 (98th percentile, 5 stars) and 4th of 628 the year before. Its average proficiency was 84.28% in 2025–2026 versus 55.51% statewide, with math especially strong at 88.30% against 54.31% for the state. South Elementary is solid but more variable: its rank has slipped from 5 stars in 2023–2024 to 4 stars in the two most recent years, and its 2025–2026 average of 71.66% beat the state's 54.75% but by smaller margins than the middle school. Its 3rd grade math result (58.18%) was only about 3.4 points above the state. North Elementary has no Forward Exam scores because it serves PK–2.

Attendance is a district-wide strength: chronic absenteeism is 5.4% districtwide against 17.3% statewide, with North Elementary lowest at 3.7%, North Shore Middle at 5.1%, and South Elementary highest at 7.2% — still less than half the state rate. Free/reduced lunch is nearly identical across all three schools, between 15.36% and 15.82%, so economic differences do not explain the test-score gap between schools. Spending and class size also vary only modestly: North Shore Middle spends the most ($13,565 per student), while South Elementary spends the least ($12,977) and has the smallest classes (13.9 to 1). North Elementary has the largest ratio (15.0 to 1) but the best attendance. North Shore Middle also reports a dropout rate of 1.3%, close to the state's 1.1%.