Waunakee Community School District

The Waunakee Community School District in Wisconsin includes six schools — three elementary, two middle, and one high school — serving about 4,166 students in grades PK through 12. It ranks 27th of 432 districts statewide, placing it in the 94th percentile with 5 stars. Enrollment is fairly balanced across levels: roughly 36% elementary, 32% middle school, and 32% high school.

The district's strongest individual school is Waunakee High, which ranked 8th of 533 Wisconsin high schools in 2025–2026, with a 98.7% graduation rate and a 0.0% dropout rate. Arboretum Elementary ranked 45th of 1,039 elementary schools, posted the highest average proficiency among the elementaries, and had the lowest free/reduced lunch rate at 3.22%. Waunakee Middle ranked 29th of 643 and improved steadily, from 49th to 48th to 29th. Waunakee Intermediate recorded the highest ELA proficiency in the dataset — 84.38% in 6th grade — but has the district's highest chronic absenteeism at 14.8%.

Even the lowest-ranked school with a ranking, Prairie Elementary at 192nd of 1,039, is still in the 82nd percentile, and it has the district's best attendance at 7.0% chronic absenteeism. Heritage Elementary serves the highest share of students from low-income families (15.64% free/reduced lunch) and spends the most per student ($17,867), yet still scores above state averages. Every district school scored above the state average on every reported test, and every school's chronic absenteeism is below the state's 17.3%. Spending and class size do not track cleanly with results: Arboretum has the highest student-teacher ratio at 13.5 but the strongest elementary outcomes, while Waunakee Middle has the lowest at 10.1 with similarly strong results.