Original Research by School Decision on Waterford Uhs School District
The Waterford UHS School District serves ninth through twelfth grade only, operating as a single high school district that pulls from a broad area across central and western Racine County. Its student body is made up of nearly nine hundred students, a size that is manageable for a high school while large enough to offer a typical range of courses and activities. The district is overwhelmingly white, with a modest Hispanic presence and very small numbers of Asian, Black, and multiracial students. Data on students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals, as well as those receiving special education services or English learner supports, was not reported; a parent who wants to understand the district's full socioeconomic and support profile would need to ask the school directly.
State testing results for the district were not available, so there is no direct measure of academic performance to report from those assessments. Without that information, it is not possible to characterize how students perform on state exams in reading, math, or science. The four-year graduation rate was also not reported, which is an unusual gap for a high school district; a family may want to inquire at the district office about graduation outcomes, as that is a standard metric families use to gauge how well a school supports students through to completion.
Where the data does provide a comparison among Racine County's districts, Waterford stands out in two areas. Its chronic absenteeism rate places it in the top quartile among the county's twelve districts, meaning fewer students are missing substantial amounts of school compared to peers elsewhere in the county. That is a positive signal for student engagement and attendance habits. At the same time, the district's per-pupil spending sits in the upper range among county districts, notably higher than the median, which reflects a significant investment in each student's education. This spending level may be partly explained by the district's structure as a single high school, which lacks the economies of scale that a full K-12 system can achieve, but it also signals that the district is putting resources into its programming.
The housing market across the communities that feed into Waterford UHS shows a broad range. The district's weighted home value sits above both the state and national averages, supported by zip codes in Waterford, Burlington, Raymond, East Troy, and Mukwonago among others. Home values vary from lower levels in the Eagle Lake area to higher ones in Muskego, so a family looking to move into the district will find some price variation depending on which town they choose. Rents appear to be concentrated in the Yorkville area, with limited rental data elsewhere, and for most families buying a home would be more expensive than renting, as is typical in the current rate environment.
In April 2024, voters approved a non-recurring operational referendum allowing the district to exceed state revenue limits for several years. The funds are expressly for maintaining class sizes, staffing, academic programs, and technology. This referendum passed with a significant portion of the vote, per publicly reported sources, and it has a direct effect on local property taxes for the life of the referendum. For a family considering the district, this is a concrete recent development that shores up the district's programming and staffing but also signals that the community has chosen to invest additional local money to keep those offerings intact rather than rely solely on state funding formulas.
The district's lone school is Waterford High, which is the sole destination for all students in the district's attendance area. Because the district covers only high school grades, there are no feeder elementary or middle schools within this entity; students come from surrounding K-8 districts or schools. A parent moving into this area should verify which elementary and middle districts feed into Waterford UHS, as those are separate entities with their own academic profiles and funding. The high school itself appears to be the central academic and social focus of the district, and the combination of a passed referendum, low chronic absenteeism, and above-median spending suggests a setting where the community has made supporting the high school a priority.
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