Rural Virtual Academy, Medford WI

Original Research by School Decision on Rural Virtual Academy

Rural Virtual Academy is a public charter school serving students in prekindergarten through twelfth grade, operated under the Medford Area Public School District. The school’s address is in Medford, a small city that serves as the county seat of Taylor County, Wisconsin. Medford has a traditional downtown core along the Black River, with government offices, local businesses, and a hospital, and it sits in a region that was historically a lumber center and later an agricultural area known for mink farming. The public school campus for the district’s brick-and-mortar schools is located about a mile east of downtown, but Rural Virtual Academy itself exists as an entirely online program, so families interact with it remotely rather than through a physical building.

The school enrolls a substantial number of students, making it a large virtual program for its grade band. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The student body is predominantly white, with a much smaller share of Hispanic students and very small shares of students identifying as two or more races, Black, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Data on the share of students with an individualized education program or identified as English learners was not reported.

Rural Virtual Academy offers a full online curriculum from elementary through high school. Because it is a virtual program within a public school district, it provides a tuition-free online option for families who want their children to learn from home while remaining connected to a public school system. This structure is a central feature of what the school is, and it shapes the peer environment, which consists of students from across the district and potentially beyond who have chosen remote learning.

State testing data is available for grades three through eight, covering math, English language arts, science, and social studies. The participation rates for these tests are low, which is a common pattern for virtual schools where in-person test administration can be logistically challenging. A parent may want to ask the school how it administers state assessments and what the expectations are for student participation. Among those students who did take the tests, proficiency rates varied by grade and subject. In English language arts, proficiency was strong in third and fourth grades, dipped in fifth grade, and then rose again in sixth through eighth grades. In math, the pattern was mixed, with third and fourth grades showing solid proficiency, fifth and eighth grades notably lower, and sixth and seventh grades in between. Science and social studies results, which are tested in fewer grades, showed generally solid proficiency rates in fourth grade and moderately strong rates in eighth grade. The school’s overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades placed it above the midpoint among districts in Taylor County, a set that includes only a small number of districts.

No graduation rate was reported. This does not necessarily indicate a problem: virtual schools sometimes have different graduation tracking methods or data reporting timelines. A parent looking into the high school program should ask the school directly about its graduation rate and postsecondary outcomes. Information on Advanced Placement, dual-credit, career and technical education programs, or other course access was not available in the data.

The district has established strategic goals for the near term, but no further details on those priorities were available. The core takeaway for a family is that Rural Virtual Academy is a large, publicly funded virtual charter school offering a complete online education from kindergarten through high school, and it draws students from a rural county-seat community and its surrounding area. Its test results, where reported, are mixed but overall sit in a middle-to-strong position relative to other districts in the same county, though the low participation rate on state tests is a factor that families will want to explore. It fits a family seeking a public school alternative to in-person attendance, with the understanding that the online format carries its own structure and expectations around testing and daily engagement.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=95%Cohort of 91 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

528 schools plotted. 25 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 373%

School 73% · District 68% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 467%

School 67% · District 64% · ▲ 2 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 544%

School 44% · District 53% · ▼ 9 pts below district

▼ 7 pts below state median

Grade 664%

School 64% · District 63% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median

Grade 769%

School 69% · District 54% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median

Grade 839%

School 39% · District 46% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 12 pts below state median

English language arts

Grade 373%

School 73% · District 58% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median

Grade 487%

School 87% · District 55% · ▲ 32 pts above district

▲ 35 pts above state median

Grade 550%

School 50% · District 46% · ▲ 4 pts above district

▼ 1 pts below state median

Grade 668%

School 68% · District 48% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median

Grade 769%

School 69% · District 52% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 865%

School 65% · District 35% · ▲ 31 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Science

Grade 480%

School 80% · District 62% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 29 pts above state median

Grade 861%

School 61% · District 42% · ▲ 19 pts above district

▲ 10 pts above state median

Social studies

Grade 480%

School 80% · District 69% · ▲ 11 pts above district

▲ 15 pts above state median

Grade 870%

School 70% · District 44% · ▲ 25 pts above district

▲ 5 pts above state median

This schoolMedford Area Public School District, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income33%Higher-income83%50 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income0%Higher-income100%100 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income20%Higher-income64%44 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income38%Higher-income86%48 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income71%Higher-income68%3 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income67%Higher-income65%2 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income67%Higher-income75%8 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income50%Higher-income69%19 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income0%Higher-income64%64 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income50%Higher-income71%21 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income71%Higher-income68%3 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income17%Higher-income47%30 pp gap