Harlan Independent

Harlan Independent has two schools serving grades K–12: Harlan Elementary School serves K–4, with 335 students, and Harlan High School serves grades 5–12, with 455 students. Because the schools’ tested grades do not overlap, their test scores cannot fairly be compared head-to-head. The clearest area-wide strength is Reading, which averaged 9 points above state results across seven grade-level results; Mathematics averaged 2 points below the state.

The strongest individual results were Harlan High School’s 11th-grade Writing, at 85% compared with 47% statewide, and Harlan Elementary School’s 3rd- and 4th-grade Reading, each 20 points above the state (69% versus 49%, and 70% versus 50%). High-school 10th-grade Reading was also strong, 24 points above the state (73% versus 49%). The sharpest shortfalls were at Harlan High School: 8th-grade Mathematics was 18%, 21 points below the state, and 5th-grade Writing was 19%, 16 points below.

Recent results moved in different directions at the two schools: across comparable grade-and-subject results, Harlan High School’s average margin over the state narrowed from 4 points to 1, while Harlan Elementary School’s widened from 5 points to 12. SchoolDigger’s statewide percentile for the elementary school rose from 56th to 78th between 2023–2024 and 2025–2026, with its rating moving from 3 stars to 4; the high school remained highly ranked but shifted from the 97th to the 92nd percentile. In 2024–2025, free/reduced lunch eligible students were 61% at the elementary school and 55% at the high school; student-teacher ratios were 14.7 and 17, respectively. Attendance is a concern at the high school: 32% were chronically absent in 2025–2026, versus 24% statewide, despite a 95% graduation rate compared with 94% statewide.