Waunakee Community School District
Dane County, WI · Suburb · grades PK–12 · 4,415 students across 7 schools
- Spends $15,603 per student in operating costs — $16,038 once local price levels are accounted for.
- 68.2% of every operating dollar reaches instruction.
- 51.9% of revenue is raised locally, mostly from property tax.
The money
| Per student, as reported | $15,603 |
|---|---|
| Per student, price-adjusted Adjusted for the local price level, so it can be set against a district anywhere else. | $16,038 |
| Per student, excluding transport | $15,569 |
| Capital spending per student Buildings and land. Lumpy by nature. | Locked |
| Total revenue | Locked |
| Total current spending | Locked |
| Local price level (US = 100) Metro-area adjustment. | 97.3 |
Where the money goes
- Instruction 60.8% Locked
- Instructional staff support 7.4% Locked
- Student support 5.4% Locked
- Operations & maintenance 7.4% Locked
- Transportation 2.9% Locked
- Food service 0.4% Locked
- School administration 6.5% Locked
- District administration 2.0% Locked
- Other support 7.2% Locked
- Other current 0.4% Locked
What the money buys
| Students per teacher A staffing ratio, not an average class size. Real classes are larger than this everywhere. | 12.4 |
|---|---|
| Students per counselor | Locked |
| Cents of each operating dollar reaching classrooms | 68.2% |
| Administration share | 8.5% |
| Child poverty rate Children 5 to 17 in poverty inside the district boundary. | 2.3% |
| Enrollment change, 5 years | +0.9% |
Stability and risk
- High debt burden More than 10% of total spending goes to interest and debt retirement, money that cannot reach a classroom.
Against the rest of WI
| Waunakee Community School District | WI average | |
|---|---|---|
| Per student, as reported | $15,603 | $17,038 |
| Reaching classrooms | 68.2% | 62.5% |
| Local share of revenue | 51.9% | 43.3% |
Average across 421 WI districts, unweighted by size.
Districts most like this one
Nearest neighbours on size, child poverty, the local price level and spending, over the same grade span. These are the fair comparisons, so we made each one a link.
These are the districts yours is fairly judged against. Where one of them does something differently, that is a question your board can answer at a meeting — it is not a reason to move.
Enrolling a child
Every “required” below links to the sentence it came from.
Waunakee Community School District
Registration and Enrollment - Waunakee Community School District
Registration runs through Infinite Campus. Read August 25, 2026.
Is a seat at your zoned school guaranteed?
We have no such statement from this district — which is not the same as a promise that your zoned school has room. Most districts never publish the policy in either direction. Ask the school office directly whether your address’s school is enrolling at your child’s grade level before you sign anything.
- This is the district’s own published wording, not our summary of it. Policies are rewritten between enrollment seasons and a page can be out of date the day after we read it — the school office is the only authority on whether a particular grade at a particular school is full right now.
- A warning here is about capacity, not about your address. It does not mean your child will be moved; it means the district has told you in writing that it may move them.
- Required the page says so, and the sentence is quoted.
- Mentioned only it comes up, but not as a requirement — often a sentence saying the district cannot demand it.
- Not mentioned we read the page and it was not on it. That is not the same as "not required".
- Page not read we have no enrollment page for this district.
Documents to bring
| Waunakee Community School District | |
|---|---|
| Proof of residency | Required “Even if they lack proof of residency, guardianship, immunizations, or school records” |
| Proof of age (usually a birth certificate) | Required “Abstracted from certified copy of birth certificate to be completed by district staff.” |
| Immunisation records | Required “Even if they lack proof of residency, guardianship, immunizations, or school records” |
| Physical examination | Not mentioned |
| Dental, vision or hearing screening | Required “The Waunakee Community School District partners with the local Lions Club who performs vision screenings on students grades 4K-4 each year.” |
| Tuberculosis test | Not mentioned |
| Records from the previous school | Required “Waunakee Community School District Withdrawal Form - English” |
| IEP or 504 plan | Not mentioned |
| Custody or guardianship paperwork | Required “Even if they lack proof of residency, guardianship, immunizations, or school records” |
| Parent or guardian photo ID | Not mentioned |
| Home language survey | Not mentioned |
| Emergency contact information | Not mentioned |
| Proof of income | Not mentioned |
| Social security number Asked for by some districts. It is not required to enrol, and a school may not refuse a child who does not provide one. We list it because districts ask, not because you must answer. | Not mentioned |
How enrolling works
Locked 11 steps of the enrollment process — deadlines, appointments, proof of residency — are not shown. What to bring is above, and stays free.
- A blank row means the requirement did not appear on the district’s page. It does not mean the district will not ask for it — published lists are routinely incomplete, and the registrar has the final word.
- Requirements change every enrollment season. Check the district’s own page, linked above, before you gather anything.
- A district cannot condition enrollment on your child’s immigration status: under Plyler v. Doe (1982) every child resident in the district is entitled to a free public education. If a district asks for something that would reveal status, you are not obliged to provide it.
- If your family is in temporary or shared housing, the McKinney-Vento Act lets a child enrol immediately without the residency and records documents listed here. Ask for the district’s homeless liaison by name.
Who decides, and what it costs you
Every band above this one asks what this district spends. This one asks who chose to.
Waunakee Community School District
The district levies its own school tax
This district raises property tax in its own name. Who sets the rate varies by state — an elected board in some, a public vote in others — but the levy is the school system’s own, and it is the part of a tax bill that school politics moves most directly.
| Waunakee Community School District | |
|---|---|
| School property tax levied, per student Only for districts that levy in their own name. Blank where the county or town levies instead — see the cards above, and read the next row. | $7,631 |
| Appropriated by the county or town, per student What the parent government handed the schools, for dependent systems. This is a general appropriation, not solely property tax. | — |
| Property tax as a share of all revenue How much of the budget rides on local property values, and therefore on local votes. | 37.3% |
| Long-term debt already owed, per student The balance at the end of the year, for scale. Repaid over decades, so it is a commitment made by earlier boards rather than a bill arriving now. | Locked |
| Debt service as a share of spending Interest plus principal repaid this year, against total spending. This is the part of the debt that is being paid now, out of money that would otherwise reach a classroom. | Locked |
| New long-term debt issued, per student Money borrowed during fiscal year 2024. What this figure does and does not tell you is set out under the table. | $0 |
- Waunakee Community School District: issued no new long-term debt in fiscal year 2024. That is a reported zero, not a gap in the data.
- A figure in the borrowing row is not a bond voters approved. It records debt issued, and that includes refinancing existing debt at a new rate — which changes nothing about what a district owes — as well as certificates of participation and lease-revenue debt, which in many states a board can issue with no referendum at all. To find out what was actually on a ballot, check the county election office.
- Debt is repaid over decades. A large balance per student is a commitment made by earlier boards and earlier voters, not a bill arriving this year. The debt service row above it is the part being paid now.
Who sits on the board
Waunakee Community School District board of education
- Joan Ensign — President
- Christopher Sonne — Vice President
- Mark Hetzel — Treasurer
- Carly Eaton — Clerk
- Ted Frey — Director
- Heather Murray — Director
- Kevin Thornberg — Director
- Members are elected: “The Board of Education is a group of seven Waunakee area residents elected by district voters to provide public education for children of the district, to set the policies under which the schools operate, and to hire the staff to administer these policies.”
- Members are appointed: “If a school board member resigns, a board member is appointed to fill the vacant position by the remaining six members to serve until the next election.”
- When the board meets: “The Waunakee Community School District Board of Education regular meetings are held on the 2nd Monday of each month at 7:00 p.m.”
Read from the district’s own board page on 2026-08-24. Boards change; the district’s page is the current record, not ours.
These seats are elected, and what this board decides — the budget, the attendance boundaries, the calendar — is decided at a meeting the public may attend. The district’s own board page, linked above, is where it publishes the schedule and the agenda. We do not hold meeting dates or contact details for these people.
Funding measures on the ballot
Waunakee Community School District
2 measures here have not been voted on yet. Everything else on this page has been decided; this has not. Your local elections office holds the registration deadline and the polling place for that date — we do not.
$316M approved by voters across 15 measures. A further $12.5M a year added to what the district may collect, across 5 measures.
| Election | Measure | Amount | Yes | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-03 | BondBE IT RESOLVED by the School Board of the Waunakee Community School District, Dane County, Wisconsin that there shall be issued pursuant to Chapter 67…BE IT RESOLVED by the School Board of the Waunakee Community School District, Dane County, Wisconsin that there shall be issued pursuant to Chapter 67 of the Wisconsin Statutes, general obligation bonds in an amount not to exceed $97,500,000 for the public purpose of paying the cost of a school facility improvement project consisting of: removal of an older portion of the High School and construction of additions and renovations at the High School; renovations at the old middle school (known as the High School South Campus); outdoor athletic field renovations and improvements at the High School Campus; district-wide renovations, capital maintenance and site improvements; and acquisition of furnishings, fixtures and equipment. |
$97.5M | — | Not yet voted on |
Locked 31 earlier measures in this district’s history are not shown.
From the state’s own election file. Latest election on record: 2026-11-03.
What this state publishes: School district referenda only — the debt and revenue-limit questions a district must ask before it can borrow or spend beyond its state limit. County, city and technical-college questions on the same ballot are not in this report. A recurring referendum's amount is a yearly rise in what the district may collect and has no end date; every other amount here is a one-off sum, as DPI recorded it.
- A vote share is not an outcome. What it takes to carry varies by state and by measure — in some states a bond needs a supermajority and a minimum turnout while a levy on the same ballot needs half, so a clear majority can still lose. Every outcome shown here is copied from the state’s own election file, and the rule that applied is stated with the coverage above. Where that file stated no outcome we show whatever count it published and no verdict, rather than working one out from the percentage — and some states publish the ballot question without ever recording a count, so a blank there is a number nobody printed.
- These are the measures a district put to its voters, not its whole tax bill. A property tax bill also carries county, city and state levies that have nothing to do with schools, and in most states a school board can issue some kinds of debt with no vote at all.
What they plan, and what they teach from
No state publishes what its districts teach from. This is the district’s own page, in its own words.
Read from https://www.waunakee.k12.wi.us/departments/curriculum-and-instruction on 2026-09-02.
- Programmes are only ever listed when the district names one in writing on its own site, and the sentence it used is shown beside it. We never infer a programme from a description of teaching style — “a balanced literacy approach” is not a curriculum, and printing it as one would invent an adoption the district never made.
- A plan document is listed as the district’s plan index listed it. We record that the document exists and where it is, not what it says.
The detailed figures for Waunakee Community School District
The verdict, the headline dollar, the funding shares, who is served and every comparability caveat are free above, and stay free. What is behind the lock is the detail you would want before acting on any of it:
- capital spending per student, total revenue and total current spending
- the ten-line per-student breakdown of where the money goes
- counselor and administrator ratios, and the total salary bill
- the enrollment process — deadlines, appointments and proof of residency
- the debt behind the risk flags — per student, and as a share of spending
- the full ballot history: 31 more bonds and levies, with the amounts
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