Badger Ridge Middle, Verona WI - Test Scores & Data

Original Research by School Decision on Badger Ridge Middle

Badger Ridge Middle School serves sixth through eighth grade in Verona, part of the Verona Area School District. It is a regular public school, not a charter or magnet. The student body is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic minority and smaller shares of Black, Asian, and multiracial students. Roughly a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a measure that tracks with the community’s overall affluence but also flags that a notable minority of families face economic pressure.

Verona itself is a fast-growing city shaped heavily by Epic Systems Corporation, the medical-software giant headquartered there. The median household income is high, property values have climbed steadily, and the poverty rate is among the lowest in the state. The housing market reflects that prosperity: homes and rents are expensive, well above state and national benchmarks. A family relocating to Verona for work at Epic or another professional employer will find a suburban, car-dependent community with a traditional Main Street, recreational trails, and a new public library. The growth narrative is clear—this is a place where jobs and people have been arriving for years, and the school system has grown with them.

On state assessments, Badger Ridge Middle posts results that sit below the midpoint for Dane County districts when averaged across all tested subjects and grades. That is a meaningful reference point because Dane County is home to some of Wisconsin’s highest-performing public schools, many in and around Madison. Within that competitive field, Badger Ridge’s proficiency rates have a clear pattern. English language arts runs broadly in the range of just under three-fifths to just over three-fifths of students scoring proficient or above, with seventh grade the strongest. Math is more uneven: sixth and seventh grade show solid results, but eighth grade drops noticeably, with fewer than half of students proficient. Science, tested only in eighth grade, also lands below half proficient. Social studies, by contrast, is a relative bright spot, with just over two-thirds of eighth graders proficient. Participation rates on all tests are very high, so these results reflect nearly the entire student body.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Chronic absenteeism data was not available in the materials reviewed. A parent might want to ask the school directly about attendance patterns and how the eighth-grade math dip is being addressed. Because the school is part of a district that has seen steady enrollment growth and little public churn in policy or leadership in recent years, the absence of dramatic district news is itself a kind of signal: a stable operating environment. No recent bond referendums, boundary changes, or curriculum overhauls surfaced in the research.

For a family coming to Verona for work, Badger Ridge Middle represents a middle-tier academic profile within a high-performing county. The school is large enough to offer a typical middle-school experience with grade-level teams and some elective variety, though program offerings were not detailed in the available data so a family should confirm what is available. The peer environment is mixed: the school is majority white and relatively affluent but includes a meaningful share of students from lower-income and Hispanic backgrounds. A parent who values a school that reflects the economic and demographic range of a growing suburb may find that mix attractive. A parent focused strictly on top-tier test scores may find the results uneven and will want to see whether the district’s other middle school or nearby districts offer a closer match to their priorities.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 659%

School 59% · District 63% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▲ 5 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 763%

School 63% · District 68% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▲ 9 pts above state median · ▲ 2 pts above county median

Grade 848%

School 48% · District 54% · ▼ 7 pts below district

▼ 4 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 658%

School 58% · District 64% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▲ 5 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 766%

School 66% · District 70% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 13 pts above state median · ▲ 9 pts above county median

Grade 857%

School 57% · District 61% · ▼ 4 pts below district

▲ 5 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

Science

Grade 846%

School 46% · District 54% · ▼ 8 pts below district

▼ 5 pts below state median · ▼ 7 pts below county median

Social studies

Grade 867%

School 67% · District 70% · ▼ 3 pts below district

▲ 3 pts above state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

This schoolVerona Area 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 6Lower-income28%Higher-income72%44 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income33%Higher-income75%42 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income31%Higher-income68%37 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income19%Higher-income76%57 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income31%Higher-income73%42 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income13%Higher-income62%49 pp gap