Summary:
ZIP code 54817 covers the rural Birchwood area of northwest Wisconsin, where two elementary schools serve local families: Birchwood Elementary, a PK–5 school with 86 students, and Birchwood Public Montessori, a PK–6 school with 25 students. Both belong to the Birchwood School District, which ranks 270 of 432 districts in the state (38th percentile, 2 stars), and together the two schools enroll 111 students.
Birchwood Public Montessori stands out for science: its 4th grade science proficiency of 77.78% is well above the district's 64% and the state's 50.83%. It also has the lower student-teacher ratio (6.4 vs. 7.8) and slightly higher per-student spending ($24,843 vs. $24,740), along with a higher free/reduced lunch rate (48% vs. 43.02%). Its most recent rank is 630 of 1044 (40th percentile, 2 stars), above its district, though below its 2021–2022 peak of 271 of 1067 (75th percentile, 4 stars). Families should note two cautions: the highest chronic absenteeism among these comparisons at 19.0%, and a 5th grade math result of 12.5% versus the state's 51.81%.
Birchwood Elementary is improving but from a low base — its percentile rose 19 → 24 → 27 over three reported years, yet it remains a 1-star school. Its 4th and 5th grade ELA and its 4th grade science results land near or above the state, while math is consistently below, including 16.67% in grade 3, 36.36% in grade 4, and 29.41% in grade 5 in 2025–2026. Chronic absenteeism is 17.7%, just above the state's 17.3%. Across both schools, math is the shared weakness, science the shared strength, and because these cohorts are very small, individual grade-level percentages can swing on a single student.
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