School district boasts 100% graduation rate

MANAWA – The School District of Manawa had a 100% graduation rate for the class of 2026 and modest gains in ACT scores.

At last week’s school board meeting, District Administrator Ryan Peterson reported that every senior in the class of 2026 graduated and the district recorded no dropouts in that cohort.

“We had a 100% graduation rate again,” Peterson told the board. “That’s pretty awesome when you look at the last three years.”

The district’s most recent 100% graduation rate was recorded in the 2023-24 school year. The graduation rate fell to 98% in the 2024-25 school year.

The district’s ACT (American College Testing) composite score for 2025–26 rose about one point over the previous school year to 18.4. A perfect composite score is 36. The test scores increased over the previous year in all areas, with reading scores showing the biggest gain from 17.2 to 19.3.

72 out of the 73 Manawa seniors took the test.

“We have smaller cohorts of students who are tested, and obviously data can swing pretty regularly,” Peterson said, “but we’re seeing a bit of an upward trend, which is great.”

The board also heard from Curriculum Committee Chair Scott Emmert about a broader effort to define a “portrait of a graduate,” identifying the skills and abilities all students should have when they leave high school, regardless of whether they go to college, trade school, the military or straight into a job.

“When you graduate from here, you’re not just checking boxes,” Emmert said. “You’re not just taking classes. You are developing yourself as someone who’s going to be successful after high school, and these are the abilities you should be working on in schools.”

The initiative incorporates five core competencies identified by the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction into existing classroom activities: critical thinking, communication, collaboration, adaptability and lifelong learning.