Summary:
Hilham, Tennessee is served by a single public school—Hilham Elementary School—which serves grades PK through 8 with an enrollment of approximately 300 students in the Overton County Schools district. The school has experienced a concerning downward trend in its state ranking, falling from the 51st percentile with a 3-star rating in 2023–2024 to the 36th percentile with a 2-star rating in 2025–2026. Overall, Hilham Elementary trails Tennessee state averages in every tested subject.
The school's brightest spot is science, particularly in upper grades, with 5th grade science proficiency at 68% and 8th grade at 55.2%—both well above district and state averages. However, grade-level inconsistency is striking: 4th grade math proficiency is just 20% while 8th grade math reaches 44.8%, and 4th grade science sits at 30% while 5th grade science hits 68%. Social studies is the weakest subject overall at 38.1% proficiency, far behind the state average of 51.4%, with especially low scores in 6th grade (28.6%) and 8th grade (27.6%). In math and ELA, overall proficiency is in the mid-30s, slightly below the state averages of 43.0% and 40.6%, respectively.
Encouragingly, chronic absenteeism at Hilham Elementary is 15.1%, lower than both the district (17.8%) and state (18.3%) rates, indicating strong student attendance. Per-student spending is $12,883, though free/reduced lunch and student-teacher ratio data are not available. Because the school spans PK–8, middle school performance heavily influences its overall rating, and the wide variation between grades suggests cohort effects or uneven instructional strengths. If Hilham Elementary can replicate the success of its 5th grade science and 8th grade math cohorts across other subjects and grade levels, it has a solid foundation to reverse its ranking decline.
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