New List Names Wisconsin’s Best School Districts For 2020

BROOKFIELD, WI — The Elmbrook School District is among the top school districts in Wisconsin for 2020, according to a new list released Monday by Niche. Out of 367 Wisconsin school districts, Niche said Elmbrook is one of the best. Several suburban Milwaukee districts had top-flight programs, according to Niche.

Here are some of the Wisconsin school districts that appear at the top of the Niche search list.

• Elmbrook School District
• School District of Whitefish Bay
• Mequon-Thiensville School District
• Middleton-Cross Plains School District
• Shorewood School District
• Greendale School District
• Waunakee Community School District
• Cedarburg School District
• Kimberly Area School District
• Pewaukee School District
• Hamilton School District
• Slinger School District
• Kohler School District
• Kettle Moraine School District
• West De Pere School District
• Franklin Public Schools
• Monona Grove Schools
• Grafton School District
• School District of Onalaska
• Menomonee Falls School District

Niche looked at more than 94,000 public schools, 4,100 private schools and nearly 11,000 school districts across the country. The rankings are meant to help parents and students find schools that best fit their needs.

Comments from current students, alumni, and parents are included in the analysis, as well as observations about things like campus life, extracurricular activities, sports options, diversity, and programs for gifted and special needs students.

“Parents and students need more than test-score data,” Luke Skurman, CEO at Niche, said in the news release. “They need to understand what it’s really like to attend a school before they start the application or registration process.”

For the first time, Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, were ranked the top private and public high schools, respectively, in the nation.

Niche.com, which specializes in all different types of rankings, including schools, has created a new list that is a bit different than the usual lists the company is known for. In this one, Niche has included both Public and Private Schools. That may not sound different than Niche's usual rankings but this list includes both private and public schools and also includes elementary, middle and high schools all in the same list. Please note that this is not a ranking, but a search list, where you can see and compare all schools grouped together, organized by Overall Grade.

2020 top public high schools:
Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology
Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy
Walter Payton College Prep
Stuyvesant High School
Bergen County Academies

2020 top private high schools:

Phillips Exeter Academy
St. Mark’s School of Texas
Phillips Academy
The College Preparatory School
Trinity School

Patch national staffer Dan Hampton contributed to this report.