Sun Prairie West High School (SPWHS) is a high school in

Sun Prairie, Wisconsin Sun Prairie is a city in Dane County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 35,967 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is the most populous suburb of Madison, Wisconsin, Madison and is part of the Madison metropolitan area. ...

, United States. It is one of two high schools in the Sun Prairie Area School District, the other being

Sun Prairie East High School Sun Prairie East High School (SPEHS) is a public high school in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, United States. It is one of two high schools in the Sun Prairie Area School District, the other being Sun Prairie West High School. During the 2022-2023 s ...

. During the 2023-2024 school year, there were 1,347 students at Sun Prairie West High School. SPWHS is a WIAA Division 1 school and is a member of the Big Eight athletic conference in all sports except for football, in which it is a WIAA Division 2 school and a member of the

Badger Conference The Badger Conference is a high school athletic conference with its membership concentrated in south central Wisconsin. Established in 1952, the Badger Conference is a member of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association. History 1 ...

. 2011 In the summer of 2010, Sun Prairie High School moved to a new building in the southeast part of town. The former school became a combined 8th and 9th grade upper middle school and was named Cardinal Heights Upper Middle School. Cardinal Heights later became a 6th-8th grade middle school and was renamed to Central Heights Middle School. In 2022, the school split into 2 high schools, Sun Prairie West High School and

, with SPWHS getting a new campus on Ironwood Drive and SPEHS keeping the Grove Street Campus. The school was opened in a

ribbon-cutting ceremony An opening ceremony, grand opening, or ribbon-cutting ceremony marks the official opening of a newly constructed location or the start of an event.

on August 28, 2022, with Wisconsin governor

Tony Evers Anthony Steven Evers ( ; born November 5, 1951) is an American politician and educator serving since 2019 as the 46th governor of Wisconsin. A member of the Democratic Party, he served from 2009 to 2019 as Wisconsin's 26th superintendent of p ...

in attendance. The construction of SPWHS was the culmination of an effort that started in 2019 with a $164,000,000

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

Extracurricular activities

Athletics

Sun Prairie West includes a 3-court competition fieldhouse that seats 2,100, 2 single-court auxiliary gyms, an 8-lane olympic-size swimming pool with 2nd floor spectator seating, a weight room, a cardio room, a wrestling room, and has an indoor track on the 2nd floor circling the fieldhouse. The south auxiliary gymnasium has an indoor pole vault for the track and field team, and several extra features designed for gymnastics, including a foam pit. The south gym is the home of the Sun Prairie Gymnastics Team, which is a co-op team between SPWHS and SPEHS; and also features a pole vault and long jump pit for the track team. Sun Prairie West hosts all home

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a contact team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game w ...

, and some

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

games at Bank of Sun Prairie Stadium at Ashley Field, a multi-purpose stadium that seats 4,000. The stadium was built in 2022 to replace the original Ashley Field that was built in 1953 on the same site, 155 Kroncke Drive. SPWHS shares the venue with Sun Prairie East. The stadium features aluminum bleachers, team rooms, a multi-purpose synthetic turf field with team colors of both high schools, 2 concession stands, multiple restroom facilities, and ample parking. The SPHS hockey team, a co-op team with SPEHS, plays at the Sun Prairie Ice Arena on Grove Street.

State championships before split (as Sun Prairie High School)

* Baseball: 1974, 1994, 1997, 2005, 2006, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2021 * Bowling: 2015, 2016 * Cross Country (girls): 2016, 2017 * Football: 1995 * Golf (boys): 1991 * Hockey: 1997 * Softball: 2018

Academic Decathlon

Sun Prairie's Academic Decathlon team has placed in the top three at the Wisconsin state finals five times. In April 2014, the Sun Prairie Academic Decathlon team represented Wisconsin in the Large School division of the National United States Academic Decathlon online national competition taking fifth place among the large schools. They repeated this in 2016.

Music

Sun Prairie West includes a

Performing Arts Center Performing arts center/centre (see spelling differences), often abbreviated as PAC, is usually a complex housing performance spaces for various performing arts, including dance, music, and theatre. In some cases it refers to a single multi-use s ...

(PAC) that seats 822. The PAC's 2400 square-foot stage features a 24-line fly system with a full fly loft, an

orchestra pit An orchestra pit is an area in a theatre (usually located in a lowered area in front of the stage) in which musicians perform. The orchestra plays mostly out of sight in the pit, rather than on the stage as for a concert, when providing music fo ...

with a removable cover, and a custom-made Wenger Diva acoustical shell system. The PAC is also home to a Steinway D Concert Grand Piano. SPWHS also features a

black-box theater A black box theater is a performance space, typically a square or rectangular room, with black walls and a black, flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interact ...

that seats 120 and features overhead catwalks and tension grids that allow for innovative lighting designs. The Sun Prairie High School Jazz I has been selected to compete in the Essentially Ellington Jazz Band competition in New York City 15 times since the festival's conception, most recently in 2025. When SPHS split into two, Jazz I became a co-op extracurricular between

and Sun Prairie West High School. The SPWHS theater department has been nominated for numerous Jerry Awards for both their cast and crew.

References

External links

* {{authority control Public high schools in Wisconsin Schools in Dane County, Wisconsin