Summary
Bayfield High is a small public high school in Bayfield, Wisconsin, serving grades 9–12 and about 119 students — the only high school in the Bayfield School District and the smallest of the three high schools in this comparison, located in a rural part of far northern Wisconsin. Statewide, it ranks 449th of 533 Wisconsin high schools (16th percentile, 1 star), and across ten years of records it has never risen above the 23rd percentile — a long-standing position rather than a recent decline.
Resources set Bayfield apart in one direction and results in another. At $28,867 per pupil and a student-teacher ratio of 7.7, it spends far more per student than Ashland High ($16,845) or Washburn High ($19,386) and has roughly half their class sizes — largely a scale effect of running a full high school program for a small, isolated population. Yet in 2025-26 its 10th-grade proficiency was the lowest of the three in every subject tested: 32.1% in social studies, 33.3% in English language arts, 12.5% in mathematics (compared with 42.9% statewide) and 25.0% in science. Chronic absenteeism is the standout weakness: 58.0% in 2024-25, more than triple Wisconsin's 17.3% and above 50% in each of the last four reported years.
Completion is Bayfield's strongest area: a 96.5% graduation rate and 0.8% dropout rate, both better than the state's 92.0% and 1.1%. The school gets students to the finish line even though proficiency lags, and severe absenteeism is the most likely connective tissue. By contrast, Washburn spends about $9,500 less per pupil with larger classes, yet beats state averages in all four subjects and graduates 100% of its students. One caution: with roughly 30 students per grade, a single student shifts a percentage by about 3 points, so year-to-year swings of 6–10 points are normal small-cohort noise. Bayfield's only above-state result on record came in 10th-grade social studies in 2023-24 (48.0% vs. the state's 45.1%), and it fell back the following year. The durable patterns: a bottom-quartile state position, weak math outcomes, high absenteeism, and solid completion metrics.
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