Where Our Schools Stand

We have said yes three times since 2018

November 2018 — $124.9M to build and renovate. Passed with 60.3% of the vote.

November 2024 — $64.4M to run the schools, $16.1M a year for four years. Passed with 57.0%.

November 2024 — $60M to fix buildings, borrowed over 20 years. Passed with 58.4%.

That is $249.3M approved in seven years, and all three questions passed. The next ask will be larger than all of them combined.

The operating referendum: we are in year 2 of 4

$16.1M a year on top of the state revenue cap, 2025-26 through 2028-29. This is the money that pays people and buys what classrooms use.

• $52.4M closes the gap between what it costs to run the schools and what the state lets the district raise
• $8M raises educator pay
• $4M buys curriculum materials

"Non-recurring" means it expires. In 2029-30 that $16.1M a year disappears from the budget unless voters are asked again.

Source: Board of Education resolution, June 17, 2024.

The $60M building program: Jefferson is in the next phase

$60M in bonds over 20 years for deferred maintenance and accessibility — at six elementary buildings, Montessori/Fisher, and both high schools.

Phases 1 and 2 — Eisenhower, Madison, Roosevelt, Washington — are substantially complete as of this fall.

Phase 3 is Jefferson, Fisher/Montessori, East and West. Jefferson's construction documents are finished, bidding is this fall, and the work is scheduled for 2027. Local reporting puts Jefferson's package at about $8.1M — windows, ceilings, unit ventilators, a new boiler plant, and ADA casework and sinks.

Sources: district 2024 Referendum project page, August 2026 update; WISN reporting on the project list.

Why our tax bills are relatively high

Wisconsin sends less state aid to districts with valuable property. There is $1.6 million of property value behind each of our students against $934,000 statewide — so we fund ourselves locally.

Against what we earn, our school tax is lighter than our neighbors'

In 2024-25 the school tax on a median Wauwatosa home was 2.1% of median household income, against 2.6% across our peers. We have been below them every year on record.

Ends at 2024-25: the Census income figures for 2025-26 are not published yet, so the first referendum year cannot be charted. The school rate rose from 6.24 to 8.56 that year - see the next chart.

What the referendum did to the school tax rate

The rate fell for most of the decade as property values rose, then went from 6.24 to 8.56 when the operating referendum began. Peers are at 7.17.

Still to be done: the secondary schools

The four secondary buildings carry ~$165M in deferred maintenance on their own. All four are under capacity.

A volunteer Ad Hoc Committee studied it for ten months and reported to the Board on March 3, 2026. The options it costed out range from $322M to $447M.

The committee recommended keeping all four schools open and renovating them. The Board has not decided.

No referendum is planned for 2026. The district says it wants more time to research and engage before an ask of this size.

Sources: district Secondary School Facilities page; Tosa News, October 7, 2025.

Who we are, and who we compare ourselves to

Wauwatosa enrolled 6,049 students in 2024-25, down 1.0% over the decade — while the typical regional peer was up 2.9%.

"Regional peers" throughout this page means twelve suburban districts near us, matched on region, spending, poverty and community type: Elmbrook, West Allis-West Milwaukee, Shorewood, Whitnall, Greendale, Greenfield, Brown Deer, Menomonee Falls, Mequon-Thiensville, Muskego-Norway, Cudahy, St. Francis.

About 17% of the K-12 children who live in Wauwatosa attend private school, against 13% statewide — close enough to the state that it is not what makes us unusual.

What does make us unusual is open enrollment: 16% of the students in our schools transferred in from another district.

Private share is ACS 2024 5-year, which asks residents where their children are enrolled. DPI publishes a different 21% figure counting private schools located inside our boundaries — a statement about where schools sit, not where families live.

As %-change from 2015-16 baseline, we’ve grown less than peers

Since 2015-16 Wauwatosa is down 1.0%. The typical regional peer is up 2.9% over the same decade; the typical Wisconsin district is down 2.2%. We rose through 2019-20 and have given all of it back.

Indexed to 100 so three very different district sizes can share one axis. Source: DPI certified membership.

Above peers and statewide trends for OE in, below for OE out

In 2024-25 we took in 16% and sent out 4%. The typical peer took in 9%; the typical Wisconsin district took in 11% and sent out 12%. We are a large net importer — but the inflow has fallen from 19% in 2015-16.

Transfers, not applications. IN is over certified enrollment (children attending here); OUT is over revenue-limit membership (children who live here) - two different populations. 410 districts in the statewide median. Source: DPI open enrollment annual reports.

Private school share: we are ordinary for this part of the state

Wauwatosa is 16.8%, the peer median 15.1%, the median Wisconsin district 12.7%. Mequon-Thiensville and Elmbrook are higher; Greendale and Muskego-Norway much lower.

Bars are margins of error. At this sample size most of these districts cannot be told apart, and St. Francis (689 resident children) is barely measured at all. Read the spread, not the ranking.

We have reversed a habit of underinvesting in our schools

In 2015-16 we spent $10,164 a student, below peers and below the state. In 2024-25 we spend $16,046, above both. Ours rose 58% over the decade; our peers' rose 28%.

We have poured money into student-facing positions

We added teachers while peers trimmed, nearly doubled the peer growth in pupil services, and cut administrators. That is a choice, and it is most of why the operating gap opened.

Especially teachers!

Teacher salary spending rose 34.7% over the decade, against 18.2% for our peers. Pupil services rose 84.4%, against 50.5%.

Administrator salary spending rose 7.3% here, against 36.1% for peers – the difference is mostly headcount. We cut admins (but gave raises) while others added admins (and gave raises).

The state's staff file records an annual contract salary, which hourly staff do not have. Aides, paraprofessionals and most "other" staff therefore cannot be costed from it, and are left out of these two comparisons rather than guessed at.

BUT! We still pay an avg teacher less than our peers do

At $69,436 we are $3,086 below the peer median of $72,522, and have been below it every year on record — though well above the state median of $61,273.

Proficiency rates – the worst achievement measure there is

We tracked above our peers before the pandemic and have come back below them. The state exam changed its scale and its labels in 2023-24; the share proficient is comparable across that break, the scale score is not.

Z-scaled test scores, a better but still imperfect measure

Position held in reading (+0.83 to +0.66) and slipped in mathematics (+0.57 to +0.38), where our peers pulled ahead. Zero is the average Wisconsin district.

This measures where we sit among Wisconsin districts, not how much children learned. If every district fell together, these lines would not move.

Absenteeism rates at the district level

We are at 12.6% against a peer median of 9.9% and a state median of 10.8% — the widest gap on any measure on this page.

How to read the Jefferson charts

Jefferson is compared with the district's eight other neighborhood elementary schools: Eisenhower, Lincoln, Madison, McKinley, Roosevelt, Underwood, Washington and Wilson.

Wauwatosa STEM and Montessori serve elementary grades but families opt into them, so they are not in the comparison.

On every chart: the navy line is Jefferson, the gold dashed line is the middle of the other eight, and the pale grey lines are those eight schools one by one.

There is no building-level spending anywhere in the public record, so this section has no dollars in it.

We have always been small, but our enrollment is down

277 students in 2016-17, 219 in 2025-26 — down 21%, against 7% for the middle of the other eight. Jefferson remains the second-smallest of the nine.

Class sizes got smaller, because the district maintained staffing levels

Teacher staffing at Jefferson barely moved while enrollment fell, so students per teacher went from 14.1 to 10.7 — third-lowest of the nine, against a middle of 11.8.

Proportion of economically disadvantaged students

Economic need rose from 21% to 25%. Jefferson also has the second-highest share of students with disabilities of the nine (17%), and has been in the top two every year on record.

ELA proficiency rates 🙄

Jefferson fell from 73% to 57% while the middle of the other eight went from 60% to 61%. The district did not move under us — the schools around us went the other way.

ELA by z-scaled scores.

Jefferson went from +1.11 to +0.44 while the middle of the other eight went from +0.76 to +0.63. Zero is the average Wisconsin school.

Proficiency counts children over a bar and cannot see movement on either side of it; this sees the whole distribution. One unit is one school-level standard deviation, so it says where the school sits among Wisconsin schools - not how much any child learned.

Mathematics by proficiency rate 🤮

Jefferson fell from 72% to 57%; the middle of the other eight rose from 59% to 65%. This is the finding on this page I would want the school to speak to.

Mathematics, z-scaled achievement

Jefferson went from +0.84 to +0.50 while the middle of the other eight went from +0.65 to +0.57. Zero is the average Wisconsin school.

Proficiency counts children over a bar and cannot see movement on either side of it; this sees the whole distribution. One unit is one school-level standard deviation, so it says where the school sits among Wisconsin schools - not how much any child learned.

Chronic absenteeism (or lack thereof) is a Jefferson strength

Jefferson sits at 5.6% against 9.2% for the middle of the other eight. It rose here as it rose everywhere, but we remain on the better side of the district.

Teacher churn is not a huge problem for us, relatively speaking

Jefferson averages 81% across the nine year-to-year moves on record, against 78% for the other eight, and has never been the lowest. Whatever is moving the test results, an unstable staff is not it.

The same charts for every school in the district except Wauwatosa STEM, an option school families choose into, and two small programs (Vel R Phillips School and Wauwatosa Virtual Academy). Each school is set against the buildings most like it:

• Neighborhood elementaries against the other eight, as in Part 3.
• Montessori (K4–8) against the 56 elementary and middle schools in the twelve peer districts.
• Longfellow and Whitman against the 14 middle schools in the twelve peer districts, with the other Tosa middle school drawn alongside.
• East and West against the 14 high schools in the twelve peer districts, with the other Tosa high school drawn alongside. High schools take the ACT in grade 11 rather than the Forward exam.

Peer groups leave out charter schools and buildings averaging under 100 students (300 for high schools). Where the comparison is a large group of peer schools, the shaded band is the middle half of them and the dashed line their median.