Hamilton Named a Top District, Doing It For Less Taxpayer Money

On the heels of being named , Sussex has earned another honor — this time by Milwaukee Magazine.

The latest edition of the magazine ranked the the  seventh best school district out of the 33 districts in the five-county Milwaukee region. Mequon-Thiensville snagged the No. 1 spot.

However, what’s most notable is of the top 10 districts, Hamilton is ranked lowest in per-pupil spending. For example, the Shorewood School District  spends more than $12,000 per student and was ranked eighth best. By comparison, Hamilton spends just more than $9,500 per student and fared slightly better in the ranking.

Denise Lindburg, the district’s spokeswoman says she thinks that means Hamilton is putting the taxpayers' money in all the right places by spending less and garnering high achievements.

“Not only are we high as far as student achievement and student learning, but also, if you take a look at the top 10 school districts, we're the lowest spending on a per-pupil basis,” Lindberg said. “For taxpayers in the community, they're seeing a really good return on investment. We're using taxpayer dollars wisely.”

The area districts were ranked on everything from ACT averages to lunch assistance programs. also ranked seventh in the list of top 10 high schools.

“For taxpayers in the community, they're seeing a really good return on investment. We're using taxpayer dollars wisely.”

Mequon-Thiensville and Whitefish Bay communities duked it out for the and best district, but Lindberg says that could be because of the lack of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds of those residents.

“There's a possibility that there's a difference in community composition in terms of socioeconomic backgrounds in those higher achieving districts,” Lindberg said. “We would need to look at income level, education level, and that sort of thing. Hamilton is a really balanced community. We have affluent areas, middle class areas and pockets of poverty.”

Superintendent Kathleen Cooke said during Monday night’s School Board meeting that she was happy to be providing one of the top 10 school districts at a value to taxpayers. During the same meeting it was announced