Hill City Public School District

Hill City Public School District is a small Minnesota district with three schools — Hill City Elementary (PK–4), Hill City Middle School (5–8), and Hill City Senior High (9–12) — serving 267 students in the listed enrollment data. The district is ranked 386th of 458 in Minnesota, placing it in the 16th percentile with a 1-star rating, and more than half of students at every school qualify for free or reduced lunch. The middle school also carries the highest student-teacher ratio in the district at 20.6, roughly 1.7 times the elementary school's.

Hill City Senior High has the strongest current standing: 33rd percentile and 2 stars, up from 13th percentile and 1 star the year before. Its all-grade reading is 43.8%, and its 10th-grade reading of 43.8% is slightly above the state's 42.5%; science is 18.8%, and the graduation rate of 84.2% is close to the state's 84.9%, with a dropout rate of 5.2% versus 4.2% statewide. Math, however, is 0% in all grades and in 11th grade. Hill City Elementary has the best current math of the three at 28.9% and reading at 36.8%, both above the district but below the state, while its science result is suppressed. Elementary math reached 67.74% in 2024–2025 — the highest figure in the data — then fell to 28.9%, with its rank dropping from 55th to 19th percentile. Hill City Middle School is the most challenged: 8th percentile and 0 stars, 6.3% in math, 26.3% in reading, 5.4% in science, 0% in both 8th-grade math and science, and a rank that has slid from 24th to 19th to 8th percentile.

Math is the district-wide weak point at 12.5%, compared with 44.9% statewide, while reading is comparatively stronger, especially at the high school. Because enrollment is small, a handful of students can move these percentages noticeably, so the zero-percent results should be read with that context in mind.