The top reported proficiency rate is 75% in Science. The lowest is 45% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Pembine High
Pembine High serves grades seven through twelve in a small rural community in northern Marinette County, Wisconsin. The school is part of the Beecher-Dunbar-Pembine School District, which covers a sparsely populated area of dairy farms, forest, and outdoor recreation land. The town of Pembine itself is unincorporated, with a tiny commercial center at the junction of two U.S. highways, and the population has been slowly declining. Families here are car-dependent; there is no walkable downtown or public transit.
The school is small, with an enrollment that makes it one of the smaller secondary schools in the county. The student body is overwhelmingly white, with very small shares of students who are American Indian, Black, or Hispanic. Slightly more than half of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a marker that suggests many families work in agriculture or lower-wage service jobs. The school operates as a regular public school, not a charter or magnet.
On state assessments, Pembine posts results that are strong for a school of its size and setting. In English language arts, proficiency among seventh and eighth graders ranges roughly from three-fifths to more than three-fifths with some variability by grade. Math proficiency is more uneven: seventh-grade math lags, but eighth-grade math shows a solid majority of students meeting the bar. Science and social studies results for eighth graders are robust, with three out of four students reaching proficiency. Across all tested subjects and grades, the school’s overall proficiency index places it in the top quartile relative to other districts in Marinette County. That is a meaningful achievement given the rural and low-density context.
Because Wisconsin administers its Forward Exam only through grade eight, the available test data covers only the middle-school cohort within this seven-through-twelve building. There are no state test results for high school grades, so a parent considering Pembine for grades nine through twelve will not find a straightforward proficiency metric for those years. The school does not report a four-year graduation rate in the data we examined, so it is not possible to compare that outcome with other schools in the county. A family may want to ask the district directly about high school completion rates and about post-secondary readiness offerings.
Pembine High is a school where the small size can be either a draw or a limitation, depending on a family’s priorities. The student-to-teacher ratio is low, and the environment is likely close-knit. But with a small enrollment comes a narrower course catalog. Data on Advanced Placement, dual-credit, or career-and-technical education programs were not available in this profile. The district’s website or a phone call to the school office would be the place to check for specific electives and opportunities.
The community surrounding the school is quiet and rural. Pembine’s economy once depended on lumber and later on potato and dairy farming. Today, outdoor recreation—snowmobiling, ATV trails, hunting, waterfalls—is a major draw, and the area has thousands of acres of public land. Housing values are modest, well below state and national benchmarks. The town has no public library, no transit system, and only a handful of churches as civic anchors. Growth is flat to slightly negative; no new housing developments or major employers have appeared in recent years.
For a family that values a small, rural school with above-average academic performance for its region, a tight-knit peer environment, and a community rooted in the outdoors, Pembine High fits that profile. For a family seeking a wide array of advanced coursework, high school test results, or a growing, amenity-rich town, the picture is less complete, and those are the areas a prospective parent would want to investigate further. The district itself shows no recent major changes or disruptions, according to the information available, so the operational picture appears stable.
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