Ripon Area School District

The Ripon Area School District serves about 1,548 students across five schools spanning pre-kindergarten through 12th grade: two elementary schools (Barlow Park Elementary School for PK–2 and Murray Park Elementary for grades 3–5), Ripon Middle for grades 6–8, Ripon High for grades 9–12, and Odyssey Academy of Virtual Learning, an alternative PK–12 program. The district overall ranks 188th of 432 in Wisconsin, placing it at the 56th percentile with 3 stars — but several individual schools outpace that figure.

Ripon Middle is the academic standout, ranking in the 80th percentile with 4 stars and scoring above the state average on all 8 of its listed 2025–26 tests; its 8th grade math proficiency of 76.42% is well above the state's 53.67%. Murray Park Elementary shows the clearest improvement, climbing from the 38th percentile and 2 stars in 2023–24 to the 67th percentile and 3 stars in 2025–26, with all listed tests above state — despite having the district's highest free/reduced-lunch rate at 46.79%. Ripon High also earns 4 stars, with a 99.0% graduation rate, a 0.7% dropout rate, and above-state results on all four of its listed tests, though its ELA ACT and Science ACT scores declined year over year.

Odyssey Academy of Virtual Learning is the district's outlier: it has the lowest free/reduced-lunch rate at 24.81%, the lowest per-student spending at $11,957, the highest student-teacher ratio at 25.8, a 100.0% graduation rate, and a 7.9% dropout rate far above district and state. Its test scores swing widely by grade, which likely reflects small cohorts and the virtual setting. Barlow Park Elementary has no rank or test data listed, which is expected for a PK–2 school. Chronic absenteeism is a district-wide strength: every school is below the state's 17.3%, from Murray Park's 1.3% to Ripon High's 8.7%.