Graham County

Graham County has two schools serving 383 students: Hill City Elementary serves PK–6, and Hill City Junior-Senior High serves grades 7–12. The clearest difference for families is that the elementary school’s 2025–26 all-grades results were above state levels in every subject, while the high school was below the state in ELA and math and nearly level in science.

Hill City Elementary stands out at the top of the two-school comparison: it had 70% proficiency in ELA, 56% in math, and 58% in science, exceeding state results by 24, 15, and 20 percentage points, respectively. Hill City Junior-Senior High had 38% proficiency in ELA, 39% in math, and 38% in science; it was 8 points below the state in ELA and 2 points below in math, but essentially level in science. The schools’ all-grades results differ by 32 points in ELA, 17 in math, and 20 in science. Grade-level results add detail: every reported elementary ELA and math grade beat its state benchmark, while high-school results were more mixed. The schools serve separate grade spans, so their all-grades results are not a same-grade comparison.

Results improved in all three subjects at both schools from 2024–25 to 2025–26. The two-school mean rose 11 points in ELA, 3 in math, and 13 in science; the state’s science result fell 3 points, so the area’s mean moved from 6 points below the state to 10 points above it. SchoolDigger’s reported percentile for the elementary school rose from 58 to 83 over three years, while the high school’s went from 58 to 39 and back to 58. Context measures also differ: the elementary school’s chronic absenteeism was 4%, compared with 20% at the high school, while the high school had the lower student-teacher ratio (8.9 versus 10.6) and lower free/reduced-lunch rate (45% versus 67%). These figures describe different school settings and do not explain the score differences.