The top reported proficiency rate is 69% in Social studies. The lowest is 59% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Les Paul Middle
Les Paul Middle is a regular public school serving grades six through eight in the Waukesha School District, located in the heart of the city of Waukesha. Waukesha is the county seat of Waukesha County, a mid-sized city about a half-hour west of Milwaukee that blends a historic downtown along the Fox River with suburban residential neighborhoods and a manufacturing-focused employer base. Top employers include GE Healthcare, Waukesha Memorial Hospital, and Generac Power Systems, alongside the school district itself and Waukesha County. The city has seen modest recent population growth and completed a major infrastructure project in 2024, switching to Lake Michigan water via new pipelines, a development that has raised water bills for residents.
The school itself holds a clear position relative to the other districts in Waukesha County: its overall academic proficiency, measured across tested subjects and grades, falls in the bottom quartile among the county’s districts. This is the single point of comparison available for the school, and it matters for context, though a parent should weigh the specific grade-level results directly.
Test results from the Wisconsin Forward exam for the most recent school year show that a solid majority of students met or exceeded state standards in English language arts and math across all three grades. In seventh grade, about three-quarters of students were proficient in math and a similar share in ELA, which are the strongest results in the building. The eighth-grade results, while still showing a majority proficient, were a bit lower in both subjects. In science, more than half of eighth graders reached proficiency, and in social studies, the figure was higher, with close to seven in ten students meeting the bar. Participation rates on the exams were high, above nine in ten at every grade level.
The student body of about six hundred is predominantly white, with a substantial Hispanic population and smaller shares of Black, Asian, multiracial, and Native American students. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating a moderate level of economic need within the school community. Data on special education identification rates and English learner enrollment were not available, which is a gap a family might want to ask about directly.
Waukesha School District, the parent district, has been making notable structural changes that affect middle school families. Horning Middle School is scheduled to transform into a STEM school at the end of the 2025-2026 school year, and Saratoga STEM Middle School is being sold at the same time. These shifts will alter the district’s middle school programming and building footprint, and parents considering Les Paul Middle may want to understand how these changes do or do not affect this particular school’s course offerings, school culture, or attendance boundaries. The district has also closed or is closing several elementary schools in recent years, citing budget shortfalls and declining enrollment, which has redrawn attendance boundaries and reduced neighborhood school options.
The housing context in the area is expensive. Home values in the Waukesha ZIP code sit roughly in line with the national average, and rents have been rising at a notable pace. The Waukesha County housing market is active, with a moderate number of listings available and homes typically spending around a month on the market. Owning a home is significantly more expensive than renting in this area given current mortgage rates.
Les Paul Middle does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no advanced placement or dual-credit data is available because those programs apply to high schools. The school’s curriculum details, extracurricular offerings, and staffing information were also absent from the available data, so a family would want to contact the school directly to understand the full program picture. What the data does show is a school that, in a county with many high-performing districts, sits below the middle of the pack on overall test scores while still delivering results where a majority of students in every grade and subject are meeting state standards. The wider district is actively reshaping itself, and that context is worth considering alongside any school-level choice.
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