Waupun Area Senior High, Waupun WI

Original Research by School Decision on Waupun Area Senior High

Waupun Area Senior High serves grades nine through twelve as a regular public school in the Waupun School District. The student body is predominantly white, with a modest share of Hispanic students and a small number of students from other racial backgrounds. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, giving a sense of the economic mix in the building.

The school sits in Waupun, a small city with a distinctive character. A notable portion of the census population consists of incarcerated people at three state correctional institutions, a fact that shapes the city's identity and its nickname, Prison City. At the same time, Waupun brands itself as the City of Sculpture, with a historic downtown, a collection of outdoor art, and access to the Horicon Marsh, the largest cattail marsh in the country. Major employers include the state correctional facilities and National Rivet, a manufacturer with deep local roots. The housing market in the area has been rising in value, roughly in line with state trends, and sits below the national benchmark. The city is within a reasonable drive of Milwaukee, Madison, and the Green Bay area.

State testing data is available for grades seven and eight, which are housed in the same building as the high school under a junior/senior high configuration. The school itself serves only grades nine through twelve, so state test results for the high school grades are not reported here because those grades are not part of Wisconsin's Forward assessment. For the tested grades within the building, proficiency rates in math, English language arts, science, and social studies fall in a middle range. Overall proficiency across tested subjects and grades places Waupun Area Senior High in the bottom quartile among districts in Dodge County. A parent evaluating the high school specifically will not find state assessment results for the upper grades in this data; that is a gap inherent to the grade band and the state testing program.

The school is a regular public school with no charter or magnet status. Data on special education and English learner populations was not available, so a reader interested in those support systems would need to follow up directly with the school. Discipline, staffing, and attendance records were also absent from the data. The graduation rate was not available in this dataset, which means a family weighing the high school experience cannot confirm that metric from this source.

Waupun School District did not surface any recent major changes such as referendums, curriculum overhauls, or boundary shifts in the available research. The district appears to have been operating without a headline-grabbing transformation in recent years.

For a family considering this school, the academic picture from the tested middle grades shows a mixed record that sits lower than some neighboring districts in Dodge County. The high school itself offers the standard range of coursework for a regular public school, though the absence of program-specific details in the data limits a fuller picture of electives, Advanced Placement, or career and technical offerings. The student body is not highly diverse economically or racially. The town of Waupun offers an unusual mix of industrial and natural assets, with outdoor recreation at the marsh and parks, along with a small downtown. The presence of major correctional facilities is a defining local fact that some families may want to understand better. The housing market is moderately priced relative to the state and nation, which may be a factor for families deciding whether to live in the district.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=95%Cohort of 132 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 757%

School 57% · District 57%

▲ 3 pts above state median · even with county median

Grade 845%

School 45% · District 45%

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 10 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 754%

School 54% · District 54%

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

Grade 850%

School 50% · District 50%

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

Science

Grade 846%

School 46% · District 46%

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

Social studies

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 56%

▼ 9 pts below state median · ▼ 3 pts below county median

This schoolWaupun 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 7Lower-income46%Higher-income58%12 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income39%Higher-income57%18 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 7Lower-income41%Higher-income66%25 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income30%Higher-income53%23 pp gap