Central High
La Crosse · WI · La Crosse School District · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
West Salem High → South Milwaukee High → Sauk Prairie High → De Forest High → Greenfield High → Germantown High → Lincoln High → Luxemburg-Casco High →📋 At a glance
- 📚 21 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 5 calculus classes · 10 physics · 9 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 78th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 88% (Bottom 43% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts graduation data, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Central High compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 21 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyWI students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: West Salem High, South Milwaukee High, Sauk Prairie High and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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Objective, government-grade data — no school pays us for placement.
🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
90th percentile nationally
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-2178th percentile by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
Bottom 43% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Title I Targeted Assistance eligible
35-39% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Targeted Assistance
35-39% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The school can receive Title I funds targeted to identified students (not schoolwide).
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
University of Wisconsin-Madison
The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $17,354/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.
Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the strongest early indicator of dropout, transfer-out, and family disengagement. A school's absenteeism trend forecasts its enrollment trend 1-3 years out.
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -1.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 969 students:
≈ 77 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $18,893 per student in district revenue, the 77 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $1,454,761/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Most similar nearby high schools
The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| West Salem High West Salem |
Public | 10.4 | 603 | +1.9% |
| South Milwaukee High South Milwaukee |
Public | 178.7 | 920 | -10.9% |
| Sauk Prairie High Prairie du Sac |
Public | 82.4 | 862 | -3.1% |
| De Forest High DeForest |
Public | 102.1 | 1,137 | +5.7% |
| Greenfield High Greenfield |
Public | 172.3 | 1,140 | +0.4% |
| Germantown High Germantown |
Public | 159.4 | 1,288 | -3.2% |
| Lincoln High Manitowoc |
Public | 178.3 | 1,385 | -2.5% |
| Luxemburg-Casco High Luxemburg |
Public | 181.9 | 661 | +10.4% |