Lake Mills Area School District

The Lake Mills Area School District in Wisconsin serves 1,473 students across three schools — one elementary (PK–4), one middle (5–8), and one high school (9–12) — and ranks 110th of 432 Wisconsin districts, placing it in the 75th percentile with 4 stars overall. Free- and reduced-lunch rates are tightly clustered across all three campuses, between 22.0% and 26.9%, so the differences in performance between schools are not explained by sharply different poverty levels.

Lake Mills High is the clear standout: 5 stars and 51st of 533 Wisconsin high schools (90th percentile), up from the 67th and then 84th percentile over the prior two years. Its graduation rate is 98.3% and its dropout rate is 0.0%, and its 10th-grade ACT proficiency leads the state in ELA, science, and math by roughly 20 points. Lake Mills Elementary is a steady performer, ranking in the 63rd–69th percentile (3 stars) all three years and beating the state in every tested subject both years, with its biggest margins in 4th-grade math and social studies; it also has the district's lowest chronic absenteeism at 5.5%.

Lake Mills Middle is the outlier and the area to watch: its rank slid to 57th percentile (3 stars), the district's weakest, with 8th-grade ELA and math now below the state average even as 7th grade improved substantially. Attendance is a district-wide strength — every school's chronic absenteeism is under half the state's 17.3% — though the high school's 10.2% is the highest in the district, above the 7.3% district average. Overall, the district is high-performing but internally uneven, with its results carried by the high school.