Racine Unified School District is a school district serving the eastern portion of Racine County, Wisconsin. It encompasses a 100sqmi area, and serves the city of Racine and six other towns and villages, which had a combined population of 139,193 at the 2010 census. RUSD is the fifth-largest school district in Wisconsin. It has 31 schools, with a student enrollment of 19,455. The district employs 1,757 teachers and 171 administrators.HistoryOn June 26, 1961, the City of Racine school system merged with 24 schools in the surrounding area to form the Unified School District No. 1 of Racine. The issue had been put to a referendum earlier that year, on April 4, and all seven municipalities of eastern Racine County – Caledonia, Elmwood Park, Mount Pleasant, North Bay, Racine, Sturtevant, and Wind Point – voted in favor of the unification. The district moved to desegregate its schools in 1975, in an effort which was regarded as widely successful and held up as a model to other cities. A pair of referendums in 2015 asked residents of Caledonia and Sturtevant whether they wanted to secede from RUSD and create separate school districts. Both narrowly won, garnering majority of the vote.
