Shullsburg Junior High

Shullsburg Junior High is a grades 6–8 middle school serving 73 students in the small southwest Wisconsin community of Shullsburg, part of the Shullsburg School District, with a student–teacher ratio of 11.3 and per-pupil spending of $16,055.

The school has been in a long academic decline. Its statewide rank has fallen from the 86th percentile in 2015–16 to the 28th percentile in 2025–26 — 463rd of 643 middle schools, with a 1-star rating — and it has been in the bottom third every year since 2020–21. Weaknesses are concentrated in the upper grades: 7th- and 8th-grade math and 8th-grade science and social studies score 13 to 25 points below state, while 6th grade is at or above state in both reading and math. Among nearby schools, Shullsburg ranks last in the comparison set that includes Black Hawk Middle, Platteville Middle, Cuba City Middle, Southwestern Wisconsin Community Middle, and Benton Middle. Notably, Benton Middle — with nearly identical free/reduced lunch rates (51.61% vs 50.68%) — sits at the 59th percentile, though it spends $35,964 per student, more than double Shullsburg's rate.

Attendance is a genuine strength: chronic absenteeism is 12.2%, below both the district (17.3%) and state (17.3%), and dropout rates were 0.0% in four of the last five years. Class sizes are small and comparable to neighboring schools. The clearest opportunity is the current 6th grade, which is above state in reading and math and the only grade level to achieve that; sustaining it through 7th and 8th grade matters, since math proficiency has tended to erode as cohorts advance. With only about 19–25 students tested per grade, single-year swings can be noisy, so repeated patterns — 8th-grade math near 29% — deserve the most weight.