Summary:
ZIP code 54810 — the Balsam Lake, Wisconsin area — is served by exactly one public high school: Unity High, the only high school in the Unity School District. It enrolls 292 students in grades 9 through 12, with a 12.8:1 student-teacher ratio and per-student spending of $14,524. About 54.11% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Because the district has only this one high school, every school-level score in the data is also the district score.
Unity High's strengths stand out. Its 2024-25 dropout rate was 0.0%, better than both the district (0.2%) and the state (1.1%), and its 90.9% graduation rate sits just 1.1 points below the state's 92.0%. The school's rating improved from 1 star and the 21st percentile in 2024-2025 to 2 stars and the 32nd percentile in 2025-2026 — the raw rank number slipped from 340 to 361, but the comparison pool grew from 431 to 533 schools, so the percentile gain is the fairer read. Three of four tested subjects gained year over year: Science rose 9.30 points, Math 6.32 points, and English Language Arts 3.76 points.
The defining challenge is day-to-day attendance. Chronic absenteeism was 32.3%, nearly one in three students, compared with 18.6% district-wide and 17.3% statewide — and the high school's rate is 13.7 points above its own district, suggesting it drives most of that gap. Achievement remains mixed: Math proficiency was the weakest subject in both years, at 21.31% and then 27.63%, against a state rate of about 42.7% to 42.9%, and Social Studies swung from 52.63% (above the state's 47.67%) to 37.7% (below the state's 48.25%), a roughly 15-point single-year drop that may reflect cohort variation in a school this small. In short, students are staying enrolled and graduating, but proficiency still trails the state — with attendance as the most likely explanation.
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