Best Elementary Schools in Zip Code 53226

ZIP code 53226 is home to three public elementary schools — McKinley Elementary and Underwood Elementary, both serving PK–5, and Wauwatosa Montessori School, which serves PK–8 — all within the Wauwatosa School District in Wisconsin, with 879 students enrolled across the three. The district ranks 142 of 432 districts statewide, in the 67th percentile, with a 3-star rating.

There is a sharp academic divide inside this single ZIP code. Wauwatosa Montessori is the strongest performer, ranking 140 of 1,039 schools (87th percentile, 4 stars) with a simple average proficiency of about 79.8%, compared with a comparable district average of about 64.3% and state average of about 55.1%. McKinley is close behind at 142 of 1,039 (86th percentile, 4 stars) with about 72.4% proficiency. Underwood sits far lower at 698 of 1,039 (33rd percentile, 2 stars) with about 49.2%. That is a 54-point percentile gap between Montessori and Underwood. The same pattern shows in attendance and poverty indicators: chronic absenteeism is 4.4% at Montessori and 4.5% at McKinley but 13.5% at Underwood, and free/reduced-price lunch participation is 10.23%, 13.4%, and 41.59% respectively.

Encouragingly, all three schools improved their simple average proficiency from 2024–2025 to 2025–2026 (about +5.1 points at McKinley, +4.3 at Montessori, +3.1 at Underwood) while comparable district averages slipped slightly. Underwood's bright spot is 3rd grade, where ELA reached 69.23% and math 61.54%, though 4th- and 5th-grade results lag well below district and often state averages. Underwood also has the highest per-student spending ($17,223) and lowest student-teacher ratio (10.8) yet the lowest outcomes, while Montessori has the highest ratio (16) and the strongest results — a reminder that spending and class size alone do not determine performance. Montessori's middle-school results are exceptional (100% in 6th grade ELA, 8th grade social studies, and 8th grade science), but with only 176 students, small grade cohorts make those figures volatile. No proficiency values in this data set were suppressed or reported as bounds; all listed scores are exact.