Waterloo School District

Waterloo School District is a small Wisconsin district serving about 631 students across three schools — Waterloo Elementary (PK–4, 281 students), Waterloo Middle (5–8, 118 students), and Waterloo High (9–12, 232 students) — with no alternative school listed. At the district level, Waterloo ranks 348th of 432 Wisconsin districts, placing it in the 19th percentile with a 1-star rating, though each individual school scored higher than the district in 2025–2026. Attendance is a genuine district strength: every school's chronic absenteeism is below the state's 17.3%, led by the elementary school at 10.4% and the middle school at 12.1%, with the high school highest at 15.7% but still below the state.

The three schools tell different stories. Waterloo High is the clear momentum story, rising from the 15th percentile and 1 star in 2024–2025 to the 40th percentile and 2 stars in 2025–2026, with ACT English Language Arts climbing from 24 to 45.16 and social studies reaching 48.89, slightly above the state's 48.25. Its graduation rate of 93.2% beats the state's 92.0% and its 0.8% dropout rate is below the state's 1.1%, though ACT math and science remain roughly 9 points below state. Waterloo Elementary has the lowest student-teacher ratio at 11.4 and improved from 1 star to 2 stars before settling at the 38th percentile. Waterloo Middle is the most consistent, holding 2 stars for three years with percentiles of 33, 32, and 31, and reporting a 0.0% dropout rate.

Math is the district's most persistent academic weakness. Every tested middle-school math grade falls below state, including grade 7 math at 32.08 vs. 55.67, and high-school ACT math and science lag well behind. English language arts is uneven: grade 8 ELA at 58.33 and grade 8 science at 56.25 are above state, but grade 6 ELA at 37.50 vs. 54.95 is notably low. In 2025–2026 all reported elementary assessments were below state, with 3rd-grade math closest at 53.33 vs. 54.75. Notably, spending and staffing do not map neatly onto results — the middle school has the highest per-student spending ($16,998) and the highest student-teacher ratio (14.7), while the high school spends the least ($16,217) yet posts the strongest completion outcomes. With only 118 students at the middle school, year-to-year percentage swings should be read with caution.