Original Research by School Decision on Kimberly High
Kimberly High is the single public high school for the village of Kimberly, a residential community within the Fox Cities metropolitan area, and for the surrounding towns of Combined Locks and parts of Buchanan and Harrison that make up the Kimberly Area School District. The school serves students in grades nine through twelve and is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet school.
The student body of roughly over fifteen hundred students is predominantly white, a demographic profile consistent with the village itself. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a rate that positions the student body as having an overall higher degree of economic stability compared to many public high schools. Data on the share of students receiving special education services or classified as English learners was not available in the profile, a gap that may reflect reporting differences rather than an absence of those populations.
State assessment data for the school was not available in the provided information, so a direct measure of academic performance against state standards cannot be described here. That absence is a limitation for any parent looking to compare academic outcomes. The school's graduation rate also was not reported in this data set, which is uncommon for a regular high school and may be a data gap rather than an indication of the school's performance. A parent should look to the district for that information directly.
The school sits within a district that has recently made a significant investment in its future. Voters in late 2024 approved a large bond referendum that will fund a wide array of facility projects. These include capital maintenance and safety improvements district-wide, with specific expansions at Kimberly High School for career and technical education (CTE) spaces and an innovation lab. The district is also restructuring its elementary and intermediate grade configurations, which will change school assignments and feeder patterns for families over time, and is creating a new 4K Center for Literacy.
The community context is that of a small village within a larger metro area that has a strong historical identity tied to the paper industry. The former Kimberly Paper Mill, which was the dominant employer for generations, closed a number of years ago and its site is now being redeveloped into a mixed-use district of homes and commercial space called The Cedars. This redevelopment, alongside general steady population growth, signals a village in transition from an industrial past toward a residential and commercial future. Housing values in the area are roughly in the middle range for the state, and the village is connected to the broader Fox Cities region by bus service.
For a family considering this school, the central facts are these. The high school serves a large, predominantly white student body in a community that has recently backed major educational spending. The academic data that is typically central to comparing schools is absent from this report, which is an unusual gap that a prospective family will want to fill by contacting the school or district directly. The most concrete evidence of available programs is the district's stated commitment to expanding CTE and innovation spaces at the high school, signaling a pathway for students interested in hands-on technical fields. The ongoing grade restructuring across the elementary and intermediate levels means that families with younger children will see their school assignments change in the coming years. The high school itself is set to gain new facilities from the bond, which could be a meaningful upgrade for incoming students.
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