iForward

iForward is a K–12 alternative school in Grantsburg, Wisconsin, serving 1,030 students — an unusually large enrollment for a small northwestern Wisconsin town, and one large enough that no other school lies within 20 miles of it. The combination of a K–12 grade span, 1,030 students, and a 60.3% free/reduced-lunch rate points to a statewide virtual or online program rather than a neighborhood alternative school. That matters for parents: the right comparison set for iForward is Wisconsin as a whole, not the schools down the road.

On the 2025–26 Forward exams, iForward trails both the state and its own district: ELA 41.2% vs. 54.0% statewide, math 32.1% vs. 53.7%, science 41.4% vs. 52.7%, social studies 51.6% vs. 59.5%. But the pattern by grade is unusual — the upper grades are the strength. In 7th- and 8th-grade ELA, 8th-grade social studies, and 8th-grade science, iForward matched or beat state averages, and 2025–26 was the school's strongest year in four years. The clearest weak points are the ACT, where iForward posted 19.8% proficiency against 44.9% statewide, with ACT math at 9.7% (under 1 in 10 students), and high school completion: the graduation rate was 80.3% versus 92.0% for the state, and the dropout rate of 2.9% is roughly 2.5 times Wisconsin's 1.1%. Note that many lower-grade percentages come from very small groups of students, so single-year swings there are less meaningful than the 8th- and 10th-grade figures.

Parents should read iForward's reported 0.0% chronic absenteeism with caution. In a virtual setting, attendance typically reflects logins or completed assignments rather than time in a building, and near-perfect attendance alongside a 2.9% dropout rate and an 80.3% graduation rate suggests the engagement problem is real even though the attendance metric does not capture it. Meanwhile, the student–teacher ratio rose to 24.2 (up 38% in two years) while per-student spending fell 7.9% to $10,075 — the same year graduation dropped 5.3 points. The Grantsburg School District ranks 302 of 432 Wisconsin districts, even though its own Forward scores beat the state average, which suggests iForward's results weigh heavily on the district's headline rating.