Hoonah City School

Hoonah City School is a small public school in Hoonah, Alaska, that serves about 110 students across grades PK–12 and is the only school in the Hoonah City School District. Because it is the only school in the district and no other schools are located within 20 miles, the most meaningful comparisons are against Alaska statewide averages. The student body faces significant economic challenges, with roughly 64–66% of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, but the school also benefits from a low student-teacher ratio of about 9.1 students per teacher in 2024-2025, which can allow for more individualized attention despite the small overall enrollment.

Academically, Hoonah City School trails Alaska statewide averages in most tested subjects. In the 2025-2026 school year, English Language Arts proficiency was 23.33% compared with 32.89% statewide, math proficiency was 18.03% compared with 32.20%, and science proficiency was 20.00% compared with 37.81%. A few individual grade levels came in stronger, such as 7th grade ELA at 33.33% and 4th grade math at 37.50%, both slightly above their statewide counterparts. However, each tested grade likely contains only a handful of students, so percentages can swing dramatically from year to year — a shift of just one or two students can move results by several points — and these numbers are best read with caution rather than as a precise gauge of school quality.

There are some encouraging signs worth noting. Test scores in ELA, math, and science have generally trended upward since the 2023-2024 school year, even though they remain below statewide averages. The graduation rate has moved in the opposite direction, falling from a perfect 100% in 2021-2022 to 83.3% in each of the last two reported years, but with such a small senior class that decline may represent only a student or two. Altogether, Hoonah City School is an academically challenged school in a high-poverty community, yet its small class sizes and recent score improvements paint a more nuanced picture than the proficiency gaps alone would suggest.