Coulee Region Virtual Academy

Coulee Region Virtual Academy is an alternative virtual school serving grades K–12 with 102 students, located at 228 5th Ave S in La Crosse, Wisconsin, within the La Crosse School District. Because there are no other schools within 20 miles, the most useful comparisons are to the La Crosse School District overall and to Wisconsin state averages. That context matters — the district ranks 294th of 432 Wisconsin districts, in the 32nd percentile with a 2-star rating (a district-level rating), and a school of this size can see wide year-to-year swings.

Engagement and completion are the areas parents should watch most closely. In 2024–2025 the school's graduation rate was 82.6%, compared with 96.0% for the district and 92.0% for the state, and its dropout rate was 3.5%, versus 0.7% and 1.1%. Chronic absenteeism was 35.1%, roughly double the state's 17.3% and well above the district's 19.6%; it has stayed in the 32–36% range for four straight years. Graduation has been inconsistent — it exceeded district and state in 2022–2023 at 93.3%, but fell below both in the two most recent years. For a virtual school, these numbers point to how much attendance depends on student self-regulation and family support at home.

Academically, the school's results are sharply split by subject. English Language Arts and Social Studies are clear strengths: 7th-grade ELA was 75% and 8th-grade ELA 66.67%, both above district and state, while 8th-grade Social Studies reached 100% and 10th-grade Social Studies 62.5%. Math and Science are the opposite — 7th-grade math was 25%, 8th-grade math and 8th-grade science were reported at 0%, and 10th-grade ACT Math was 15%, all well below district and state. Per-student spending rose 76.8% over four years to $17,117 in 2024–2025, while the student-teacher ratio climbed to 16.8. Given the small cohorts, single-year figures should be read cautiously, but the repeated math and science gap, along with high absenteeism, stands out as the clearest pattern.