Best High Schools in Zip Code 53081

ZIP code 53081 is home to four high schools — South High, Central High, George D Warriner High School for Personalized Learning, and Etude High — all serving grades 9–12 in the Sheboygan Area School District, with a combined enrollment of 1,458 students. Enrollment is highly concentrated: South High alone has 1,075 students, about 73.7% of the total, followed by Central High (183), Warriner (123), and Etude High (77). The district ranks 343 of 432 districts statewide, at the 21st percentile with 1 star — a single label that hides wide differences among these four schools.

Etude High is the academic standout, ranking 67 of 533 (87th percentile, 4 stars) with the group's highest ELA (66.67%), math (60%), and science (66.67%) proficiency, though its chronic absenteeism (43.5%) and dropout rate (2.9%) trail district and state. Warriner is the improvement story, climbing from the 11th percentile to the 39th, with 0.0% chronic absenteeism and 0.8% dropout, and social studies (53.13%) and ELA (50%) above the state. South High graduates 91.3% of students with a 0.9% dropout rate, but all its test scores fall below district and state and absenteeism is 34.5%. Central High is in crisis: 521 of 533, 2nd percentile, 0 stars, 70.6% graduation, 11.0% dropout, 76.3% chronic absenteeism, and near-zero proficiency, including 0% in social studies.

Only Etude and Warriner exceed the state in any subject; South and Central exceed it in none, and all four except Etude fall below the state in math and science. Spending, class size, and poverty do not line up simply with results: Central has the highest free/reduced-lunch rate (88.52%), the highest per-student spending ($14,452), and the lowest student-teacher ratio (13.5), yet the weakest outcomes, while Etude spends near the top ($14,264) and performs best. Because Etude, Warriner, and Central are small, their percentage figures can swing sharply from year to year.