High Schools in Franklin County

Franklin County has five high schools serving grades 9–12 and 6–12, with 1,914 students altogether; the two larger schools enroll about 95% of them. Most reported high-school academic results therefore come from Franklin County High School and Western Hills High School. The most important finding is that Franklin County leads Western Hills in all six reported subjects and scores above the state in each one.

Franklin County High School is the strongest of the two on the available 2025–26 results, with scores 1–11 percentage points above Western Hills and 1–7 points above the state. The biggest school-to-school leads are in math and reading, at 11 points each; the writing scores are nearly level, just 1 point apart. Western Hills High School has a relative strength in writing, scoring 4 points above the state, but falls below the state in its other five subjects—by 10 points in math, 6 in reading, 2 in science, 3 in social studies, and 2 in editing and mechanics. Both larger schools have high graduation rates, about 98% compared with 94% statewide, while chronic absenteeism is higher than the state rate at both: 28% at Franklin County and 33% at Western Hills, versus 24% statewide.

Recent trends also favor Franklin County: its SchoolDigger ranking percentile rose from 51 to 65 to 67 from 2023–24 through 2025–26, while Western Hills went from 54 to 61 and then fell to 42. Across the six subjects, Franklin County’s average scores improved by about 1 point from the prior year, while Western Hills’ fell by about 5; the combined average moved from about 2 points above the state to essentially level. School context varies: in 2024–25, free/reduced lunch eligibility was 52% at Franklin County and 48% at Western Hills; student-teacher ratios were 18.2 and 17.5, respectively. The much smaller The Academy, Future Forward Education & Career Center, and William Cofield High School enroll 22–38 students; their 2024–25 free/reduced lunch eligibility ranges from 14% at Future Forward to 95% at The Academy. These three schools have no comparable reported school-level test scores, so their academic performance cannot be ranked against the two larger schools.