Milwaukee High School of the Arts

Milwaukee High School of the Arts is one of the large senior highs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, part of Milwaukee School District, with 959 students on its rolls from grades 9 through 12. By comparison, Wisconsin's public schools average about 475 students each, so Milwaukee High School of the Arts sits 102% larger than that benchmark.

Across the 155 schools in Milwaukee School District (65,835 students total), Milwaukee High School of the Arts accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Milwaukee High School of the Arts lists that the largest single group is Black, at 55% of enrollment. The remainder breaks down as 20% Hispanic, 12% Asian, 8% White, 4% multiracial. That is noticeably more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 26%.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 63 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 15.2:1 students per teacher. The state averages about 14.6:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. Roughly 76% of students at Milwaukee High School of the Arts qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. By comparison, Milwaukee County runs at roughly 64%, so the school's eligibility rate is higher than the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Milwaukee High School of the Arts performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 30.9%, the actual is 18.6%, a residual of -12.3 points.

In the broader community, community-level numbers for Milwaukee County indicate the typical household earns roughly $64,435 per year, about 35% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 13%. Across Milwaukee County's 284 public schools (combined enrollment of about 122,496 students), Milwaukee High School of the Arts is one campus in the mix.

Nearest neighbor: Milwaukee Academy of Science, around 0.2 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Milwaukee High School of the Arts. On composite proficiency, Milwaukee High School of the Arts comes 3rd of 8 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 19.1%.

Geographically, the school is in a city-core area.

Over the past 7-year window. Over the past 7-year window, the student count climbed 10%: 874 students in 2018 compared to 959 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment ticked down from 60% to 55% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 16.8:1 in 2018 to 15.2:1 today.

Inside the community feed, members of the Milwaukee High School of the Arts community share and discuss fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.