The top reported proficiency rate is 66% in Social studies. The lowest is 52% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Unity Elementary
Unity Elementary serves kindergarten through fourth grade in Balsam Lake, a small village that is the Polk County seat. The school is one of three buildings in the Unity School District, and all three sit on a shared campus about three miles north of the village center, set apart from Balsam Lake’s compact downtown and lakefront business strip. The village itself has a mixed character: county government offices anchor one end, a year-round tourism and hospitality sector lines the lake, and a small industrial park with available infrastructure is being marketed for future development. Housing values in the area sit above the national median and have seen modest recent growth, though the district’s location roughly an hour and a half east of the Twin Cities metro area means some residents likely commute.
The school enrolls a student population that is predominantly white, with small shares of students who are American Indian or Alaska Native, two or more races, or Hispanic. More than half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a share that places the school among those with considerable economic need. The grade band ends at fourth grade, so there is no graduation rate and no data on high school outcomes. The school is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet, and state testing data for the most recent year is available for grades three and four.
On the Wisconsin Forward assessment, Unity Elementary’s third graders posted proficiency rates that fell a bit below the midpoint among the county’s districts when averaged across subjects. Fourth graders showed a similar pattern, with proficiency rates that were mixed by subject. In both grades, reading proficiency was higher than math. Fourth graders also took state science and social studies tests, and in social studies the proficiency rate was noticeably higher than in science. Across all tested grades and subjects, the school’s overall proficiency index sat below the middle of the distribution for Polk County districts. That is a soft spot. A parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand how instruction and support are structured for students who are not yet reaching the proficient bar, particularly in math in the middle elementary years and in science in fourth grade.
The school does not have public data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, staffing ratios, or course access, which are common metrics for a fuller picture of school environment. The district brief turned up no recent parent-relevant changes such as boundary shifts, program cuts, or facility projects that would alter the day-to-day experience. Because Unity Elementary serves only through fourth grade, students move to a separate middle school on the same campus for fifth grade onward, so the elementary building represents the early stage of a long pathway through a single district complex.
For a family considering this school, the setting matters. Balsam Lake is a small, low-density lake town with a downtown walkable only in a narrow sense along the lakefront. The school campus is not in the village center but on a highway a few minutes north, which means drop-off and pickup are car-dependent. The student body is economically diverse and not especially racially diverse by Wisconsin rural-school standards. Academically, the school is not among the highest-performing in the county, but it is also not at the bottom. The groundwork is there for a solid elementary experience, and a parent would want to ask about the school’s own strategies for moving more students into the proficient range, especially in math and science, before making a judgment.
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