This is the first article in a series exploring educational options in the Rusk County area.
In the past, the vast majority of students in Wisconsin, especially in rural areas, attended their local public schools. These days, the state’s educational landscape has changed, and in Rusk County, the options for families have expanded. The statewide options, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI), include local public schools, private schools, school choice schools, charter schools, virtual schools, open enrollment into a neighboring public school, youth options, course options, and home-based private education, also known as home schooling.
This article series will focus on the public, private, parental choice and homeschool options available for students in Rusk County.
The issue of declining enrollment in public schools has been in the public conversation for a long time. According to data published by the Pew Research Center, the percentage of K-12 students enrolled in public schools nationwide declined from 87% of students in 2011, down to 83% as of the 2021-22 school year.
This trend can be seen in Rusk County schools. Data found on the Wisconsin Policy Forum (WPF) website show how those numbers are affecting the Bruce, Flambeau and Ladysmith school districts. According to the data tracker on the WPF site, from the 2010-11 school year to 2024-25, student enrollment in the Bruce School District decreased from 518 to 388, Flambeau Schools decreased from 658 to 436, and Ladysmith Schools decreased from 928 to 727.
One could speculate that the overall decline in the county’s population numbers might account for these drops in enrollment. According to usafacts.org, Rusk County’s population was 14,730 in 2010, and in 2022, it was 14,186, a 3.7% drop.
Other factors affecting public school enrollment could include an increase in parents choosing other ways to educate their children, which includes homeschooling, virtual, private and parental choice schools.
Wisconsin Parental Choice Program
According to information found on the DPI website, Wisconsin has three programs that allow eligible students to attend a participating private school in grades 4K to 12, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program (MPCP), the Racine Parental Choice Program (RPCP), and the Wisconsin Parental Choice Program (WPCP). Students living outside of Milwaukee and Racine may participate in WPCP where available. The participating private schools receive a state aid payment for each eligible student.
Currently in Rusk County, there is only one school participating in WPCP, Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic School (OLS).
Student eligibility for the WPCP is based on residency, family income, and age. Students must prove they are Wisconsin residents living outside of Racine or Milwaukee, and students age four to 20 are eligible to apply. For 4K, they must be at least four years old on or before September 1, for kindergarten, five years old and for first grade, six years old.
Income limits for WPCP only apply for K-8 students when applying for the first time. Once a child is enrolled in the program, an increase in family income does not mean the student becomes ineligible. Income limits are different for families headed by a single parent vs. married parents. For a family size of two, i.e., a single parent with one child, the income limit for 2025-26 school year is $44,968. For a single parent with two children, the limit is $56,804. For a family of three with married parents, the limit is $63,804. The information about income eligibility can be found on the DPI website at https://dpi.wi.gov/parental-education-options/choice-programs.
Choice schools cannot charge their school choice enrollees in grades K-8 any regular fees associated with their enrollment, but they can charge reasonable fees for items such as towels, room and board, gym clothes or uniforms, musical instruments, meals, and for extracurricular activities that are not part of the required curriculum.
Private schools participating in WPCP may charge tuition, in addition to the state aid received, to students in grades 9-12, if the family income exceeds $44,968 for a family size of two (single parent with one child).
As far as students with special needs, school choice schools must accept any student that meets income eligibility and residency requirements. According to the schoolchoicewi.org website, once a child is admitted, the private school is only required to offer those services for special needs students that it can provide with minor adjustments. Private schools are advised to work with their local public school districts, as those schools have the legal responsibility to provide services to special needs children enrolled in private schools.
In Wisconsin, home schooling is governed by the compulsory attendance law, which requires all children between the ages of six and eighteen to attend school. Before 1984, families choosing to home school faced legal uncertainty, and had to either request permission from DPI or incorporate as a private school. With the passage of Act 512 in 1984, the state legalized home schooling. Today, Wisconsin is considered one of the more homeschool-friendly states in the U.S.
Data from the DPI website show a significant increase statewide in the number of students who are home schooled. In the 1984-85 school year, only a tenth of a percent (.10) of students were home schooled, compared to 2024, where 3.23% of students were educated at home.
In Rusk County, an average of 10% of students per school district are participating in a home school education according to data from the Wisconsin DPI website. In 2024-25 school year, the number of home school students living in the Bruce School District was 45, which is 11.60% of the 388 students enrolled. In the Flambeau School District there were 54 home school students out of Flambeau’s 436 enrolled students or 12.39%. In the Ladysmith School District, 49 students were home schooled, out of the 727 students enrolled, 6.74%.
Parents who wish to home school must notify their local school district of their intent to home school their children by submitting a PI-1206 form (found on the DPI website) to the school administrator, or by sending them a letter. Parents must also enroll their children in a program that meets the state’s requirements for which there are several options:
· Attend a home school program operated by a private school or a home school organization.
· Join a cooperative or a group that provides home school curriculum, support services and educational opportunities.
· Develop their own program and provide 875 hours of instruction each academic year in the basic subjects.
Families that home school have to provide the state with records of the subjects covered and materials used, show they provide 875 hours of instruction yearly, collect samples of their children’s work as evidence, and create and maintain transcripts or progress reports that document their child’s education.
Virtual schooling involves students learning online from a location with internet access, usually their home, and is offered by a number of tuition-free public virtual charter schools in Wisconsin. According to DPI, a virtual charter school is defined as “a charter school under contract with a school board in which all or a portion of the instruction is provided through means of the Internet, and the pupils enrolled in and instructional staff employed by the school are geographically remote from each other.” Virtual charter schools are publicly funded, non-sectarian, and are exempt from many regulations that normally apply to traditional public schools. State statutes contain specific requirements that have to be met by virtual charter schools.
Attendance at a virtual charter school is not considered home schooling; students are enrolled in a public school that has a school board, follows public school curriculum, and has certified teachers. Students in virtual charter schools must attend regularly, with some virtual charter schools requiring physical attendance for at least a portion of instructional time.
Virtual charter schools are not for everyone, as it requires pupils to be self-motivated and able to organize their work on their own, or with parental guidance. Those students who lack self-motivation or close parental supervision might not be the best candidates for online schooling. In Wisconsin there are close to 60 virtual charter schools on the list found on the DPI website. Area schools with virtual charter school programs include Birchwood, with their Bobcat Virtual Academy, and Chetek-Weyerhaeuser’s Link2Learn Virtual Charter School.
According to data provided by the Badger Institute, private school enrollment in Wisconsin has increased 290% since 2004. Independent charter school enrollment increased by 193%, and there was a drop of 8.9% in traditional public school enrollment.
There are currently three private schools in Rusk County, Our Lady of Sorrows School (OLS), North Cedar Academy (NCA) and Imago Dei Academy (IDA), with a fourth to be added in fall 2026, Firm Foundation Academy (FFA).
Our Lady of Sorrows (OLS) School was founded in 1912 as St. Mary’s School, and St. Mary’s was the name of the parish as well. The OLS school building, which sits next to Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church, was built starting in 1956, and when it opened in 1957, the church and the school joined under the name Our Lady of Sorrows Parish and School. A private Catholic school, OLS educates students in grades K-8, and participates in WPCP. The school was founded by the Sisters of the Servants of Mary, a community of Catholic nuns also referred to as the Servite Sisters.
North Cedar Academy (NCA) is a private boarding school located at the former Mount Senario campus. Founded in 2014, the school primarily attracts international high school students seeking to prepare for U.S. colleges and universities. The school has also been increasing its domestic enrollment over the past two years, offering local students tuition-free admission. While not yet a WPCP school (they applied last year but paused to earn accreditation with the Wisconsin Religious and Independent Schools Association), Headmaster Mike Lovorn explains that they may return to the application in the near future. NCA’s current enrollment is 58, three of whom are from the local area.
Imago Dei Academy (IDA) was founded in 2021 to provide a classical and Christian-based education, starting with students in grades K-8, and since 2023 they have been teaching grades K-12. Imago Dei Academy recently moved into the old WITC/Northwoods Tech building just west of Kwik Trip on Highway 8. The current enrollment of IDA is 35 students in grades from junior kindergarten to grade 11, and they recently added a preschool program. IDA is not a school choice school.
A new school called Firm Foundation Academy (FFA) will be added to the list of local private schools with its opening in the fall of 2026. FFA started out as an idea formulated by two local couples, Bev and Gordie Dukerschein and Yvonne and Bill Rands, and has blossomed into a larger effort, with the forming of a governing board, purchase of a property, renovation and construction of the school facilities, and the hiring of Mark Corey, their interim head of school. The school will have a strong emphasis on teaching Christian values along with training students in the trades. They plan to start teaching students in grades seven through nine in the fall of 2026, and adding grades 10-12 in the following years. Currently, construction crews are hard at work renovating the Servite Sisters’ residence that FFA purchased last year, and are building a new building on the site that is slated to be a large shop with classrooms.
In the coming weeks and months, this series of articles will explore in greater depth the four area private schools, area home school programs, and will also take a look at the offerings of the traditional public school districts of Bruce, Flambeau and Ladysmith. Stay tuned to the Ladysmith News for this series of articles on the changing educational landscape in Rusk County.