Summary:
ZIP code 54457 in Nekoosa, Wisconsin contains two high schools serving grades 9–12 — Nekoosa High and Nekoosa Academy — both at 500 Cedar St and both part of the Nekoosa School District, with a combined enrollment of 308 students.
Nekoosa High enrolls 285 students and is the district's outcome anchor: a 97.3% graduation rate (above the district's 94.1% and the state's 92.0%) and a 0.3% dropout rate, well below the state's 1.1%. Its ranking has climbed steadily for three years, from the 12th percentile to the 36th, and its star rating rose from 1 to 2. English Language Arts proficiency sits right around the state line, science improved by 10.1 points in the most recent year, but math and social studies trail the state by double digits. Chronic absenteeism, at 28.9%, is 11.6 points worse than the state — students finish, but many miss substantial instructional time getting there.
Nekoosa Academy enrolls just 23 students and reports no test scores or ranking history, so no academic comparison with Nekoosa High is possible. Its indicators describe a different population: 100.0% chronic absenteeism, a 70.0% graduation rate and a 20.0% dropout rate, with 73.91% of students economically disadvantaged. With only 23 students, one student is worth about 4.3 percentage points, so these numbers signal direction rather than precision. The Academy also receives $12,330 per student versus $19,959 at Nekoosa High, despite serving the higher-need group — the most counterintuitive comparison in the data. Parents should read the Academy as a small, likely alternative setting rather than simply a lower-performing version of the same school.
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