Overview

North Division High School is a public high school on West Center Street in Milwaukee's 53206 ZIP code, part of Milwaukee Public Schools -- the largest district in Wisconsin, with 154 schools and 66,864 students. NCES lists it as a regular, open, non-charter school reachable at (414) 267-4900.

At 346 students across four grades, it is one of the smallest comprehensive high schools in this directory. For district comparison, NCES and Wikipedia give Milwaukee High School of the Arts 985 students (17.67:1) and Alexander Hamilton High School 1,485 (15.55:1). North Division's 12.47:1 ratio is well below the district average of 17.33:1.

Academics

No school-specific Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction report-card data was located for this profile. Check DPI's school report cards directly for current results.

A SchoolGrade verdict worth examining closely. CrimeGrade's SchoolGrade panel for ZIP 53206 reports schools averaging F, with 10% actual proficiency versus 11% projected -- and concludes that "overall, schools meet expectations."

Ten percent proficiency described as meeting expectations is the clearest illustration this directory has found of what that phrase actually measures. As noted on the Philadelphia and Richmond profiles, SchoolGrade compares actual performance against a projection derived from local characteristics. Where the projection is 11%, a result of 10% is indeed close to it. But "meets expectations" carries a plain-English meaning that this figure does not support, and a parent encountering the phrase without the underlying numbers would take away something the data does not say. The expectations being met are extremely low ones.

This figure is also ZIP-wide, not specific to North Division High School.

Neighborhood

The school is in Milwaukee's 53206 ZIP code on the city's north side. DoorProfit reports Milwaukee's median household income at $43,125, median home value $127,622, and median rent $866, with 41% home ownership.

Crime & safety

Citywide, Milwaukee's sources agree on direction and vary on magnitude. Nextdoor reports an overall rate of 47.58 per 1,000 against a national 33.37. AreaVibes reports 4,132 per 100,000 -- 94.96% above the national average -- with a violent crime rate of 1,431 per 100,000 placing the city in the lowest 10% of US cities reporting, and 1-in-70 violent victimization odds. It also reports substantial year-over-year declines: total crime down 32.4%, violent crime down 14.8%, property crime down 39.1%. DoorProfit grades the city C-, 38% above the national average, with 82% of its 191 analyzed neighborhoods graded A or B and three graded F.

CrimeGrade puts the Milwaukee area at 31.74 per 1,000 and describes it as "less safe than the Wisconsin state average and as safe as the national average" -- the same unusually mild framing this directory noted on the Richmond, Virginia profile, and at odds with AreaVibes placing the city's violent crime in the bottom decile nationally.

The two providers disagree sharply about this specific ZIP code, and the gap is large.

CrimeGrade reports 53206 at 86.16 crimes per 1,000 residents -- roughly 2.7 times its own citywide figure of 31.74 -- with victimization odds from 1 in 9 in the southeast to 1 in 14 in the north, and describes the ZIP as less safe than both the Wisconsin and national averages. Its cost-of-crime estimate for 53206 is $7,867 per resident, of which $5,868 is intangible cost attributed entirely to violent crime. For comparison, its citywide Milwaukee figure is $1,594 per resident -- meaning this ZIP carries roughly five times the per-resident crime cost of the city as a whole.

DoorProfit lists 53206 at B-, index 141, and in the same list rates 53295 at D+ (188) and 53205 at D+ (162). A B- for a ZIP that another provider measures at 2.7 times the citywide rate, with five times the citywide crime cost, is not a small discrepancy.

We cannot adjudicate between them. But CrimeGrade's figures for 53206 are internally consistent across three separate measures (rate, victimization odds, cost), while DoorProfit's grade-to-index coupling has been unreliable on five prior profiles in this directory. Readers should treat the B- with corresponding caution.
CrimeGrade repeats on both its Milwaukee and 53206 pages the methodological caveat this directory credited on the Salt Lake City profile: crime rates are measured per resident, so "areas with heavy visitor traffic can read high because crime follows crowds, even where few people live," and "a red area does not always mean the neighborhood is unsafe for residents." It specifically notes that the north part of the ZIP holds more retail establishments, which lifts recorded crime around those blocks.

Our calculated rating

We don't publish a single proprietary score. No school-specific academic data was located, the only academic figure available is a ZIP-wide F at 10% proficiency framed as "meeting expectations," and the two safety providers differ by a factor that neither reconciles. See our ratings methodology.

Sources

  1. NCES Common Core of Data, North Division High (550960002730), 2024-25 school year (address, enrollment, classroom teachers FTE, ratio, locale, county, phone, charter status).
  2. Wikipedia, "Milwaukee Public Schools" (district size, enrollment, staffing, ratio, superintendent, founding).
  3. NCES and Wikipedia records for Milwaukee High School of the Arts (550960002339) and Alexander Hamilton High School (district comparison figures).
  4. CrimeGrade.org, 53206 overall crime page (rate per 1,000, victimization odds, tangible and intangible cost of crime, SchoolGrade panel, per-resident measurement caveat).
  5. CrimeGrade.org, Milwaukee WI overall page (citywide rate, victimization odds, cost of crime, state and national comparison).
  6. Nextdoor, Milwaukee crime and safety resource page (overall rate against stated national average).
  7. AreaVibes, Milwaukee crime rates (rate per 100,000, violent crime rate and national percentile, victimization odds, year-over-year changes).
  8. DoorProfit, Milwaukee crime statistics (citywide C- grade, national comparison, victimization odds, ZIP-level index list including 53206, demographic and economic figures).
  9. DoorProfit, Milwaukee crime map (neighborhood grade distribution across 191 neighborhoods).
  10. NeighborhoodScout, Milwaukee crime rates and statistics (comparative city and state figures).