Riverside Middle

Riverside Middle is a middle-grades school of well-populated scale in Watertown, Wisconsin, operated by Watertown Unified School District, serveing 616 students in grades 6 through 8. By comparison, Wisconsin's public schools average about 381 students each, so Riverside Middle sits 62% above that benchmark.

Across the 10 schools in Watertown Unified School District (3,076 students total), Riverside Middle accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

On the student-mix side, Riverside Middle records that White students make up the majority at 68%; the rest consists of 23% Hispanic, 6% multiracial. By comparison, Jefferson County as a whole is about 89% White, so the school skews meaningfully less White than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, Staff filings list 49 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 12.5:1 students per teacher. The state averages about 12.8:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. Roughly 44% of students at Riverside Middle qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is noticeably above Jefferson County's rate of about 35%.

On a residual basis (actual vs predicted given the student mix), Riverside Middle sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 50.4%; this one delivers 47.1%.

Across the wider county, Jefferson County reports that median household earnings sit near $83,750, about 29% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 5%. Across Jefferson County's 31 public schools (combined enrollment of about 9,194 students), Riverside Middle is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Webster Elementary, roughly 0.8 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Riverside Middle comes 5th of 7 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 54.9%.

The campus sits in a town-center setting.

Over the past 7-year window. Riverside Middle's enrollment has shrank 23% since 2018, when it stood at 795 (now 616). The White share of enrollment shrank from 74% to 68% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio narrowed from 15.8:1 in 2018 to 12.5:1 today.

In the discussion threads here, the feed for Riverside Middle typically covers school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.