Best Public Schools in Zip Code 54937

ZIP code 54937, covering North Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, is home to four schools — two elementary, one middle and one high school — all run by the North Fond du Lac School District, together serving roughly 1,464 students in grades K–12, with the district ranked 396th of 432 statewide (8th percentile, 0 stars).

Comparing the schools, Bessie Allen Middle has the strongest operational signal: its chronic absenteeism of 2.4% is the lowest in the ZIP and far below the district's 10.7% and the state's 17.3%, and it posted the ZIP's largest middle-school gains in Social Studies (+21.4 points) and Science (+18.3). Friendship Learning Elementary, the largest school at 612 students, reached math proficiency at or above the state in 3rd grade (56.52 vs. 54.75), but shows the ZIP's widest single subject gap: 4th-grade Social Studies at 48.6% against a state rate of 65.51%. Horace Mann High is the most contradictory — a 95.2% graduation rate that beats the state's 92.0%, yet 10th-grade ACT proficiency at roughly half the state level in ELA (23.23 vs. 48.47), math (17.17 vs. 42.93) and science (24.24 vs. 43.20), plus the ZIP's highest absenteeism at 15.3%. Treffert Way for the Exceptional Mind is the outlier: just 60 students, $20,551 per student, 65% free/reduced lunch, but 6.9% absenteeism, 0.0% dropout and 6th-grade math at 60% versus the state's 53.6%.

Three patterns matter most for families. First, attendance varies enormously — 2.4% to 15.3% absenteeism, a 6.4× difference within one district — and it multiplies roughly six-fold between the middle school and the high school, so the middle school's success is not carrying into grades 9–12. Second, Social Studies is the deepest and most consistent deficit, with three of the four schools recording their largest subject gap there. Third, spending does not track with outcomes: the highest-spending school has the weakest rank history, and student-teacher ratios are nearly identical everywhere (14.5 to 15.6). Note that all four schools dipped in 2024–25 and recovered in 2025–26; only Bessie Allen and Treffert Way now exceed their 2023–24 percentile rank.