Hamilton Middle School, Hamilton AL

Original Research by School Decision on Hamilton Middle School

Hamilton Middle School serves grades five through eight in the Marion County school system, drawing its students from the town of Hamilton and the surrounding area. The school is part of a small, rural public district, and it sits on its own campus rather than being integrated into the downtown core. Hamilton itself is the county seat, a town with a mix of residential areas, county government functions, and some manufacturing. The population has been slightly declining in recent years, and there is little publicly reported information about new housing or commercial development. Families moving to the area should expect a car-dependent setting with limited transit options; the only fixed-route service is a dial-a-ride operation.

The student body of about that size for a middle school is predominantly white, with Hispanic and Black students making up smaller shares. More than half of the students come from households that qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, giving the school a solidly middle-to-lower-income economic profile. No data was available for the share of students with disabilities or English learners, so a parent concerned with those support services would want to follow up directly with the school.

On academic performance, the picture is mixed and worth examining by subject. In English language arts, proficiency rates are strong across all four grade levels, with the lowest being at the upper end of the school and still reaching a substantial majority of students. This is clearly a relative strength for Hamilton Middle. Science, tested only in eighth grade, shows about half of students meeting the proficiency bar, which is a moderate result. Math is where the school’s performance softens noticeably. The share of students scoring proficient declines steadily from fifth grade down to a notably lower figure in seventh grade, with eighth grade only slightly above that low point. Reading across grade levels, a parent might notice that more than half of students in the older grades are not meeting the math benchmark. These math scores are the area a prospective family would most want to ask the school about, particularly what interventions or curriculum adjustments exist for the upper grades.

The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Only one year of state test data was available, so there is no multi-year trend to gauge whether these results are stable or shifting.

Compared to the two other districts in Marion County, Hamilton Middle’s combined proficiency across all subjects and grades lands in the bottom quartile. The comparison set is small, so this position is a blunt instrument, but it signals that families comparing local options should be aware that achievement is notably weaker here in math specifically, even if English performance holds up relatively well.

The school operates as a regular public school and is not a charter or magnet. No specific program offerings, such as gifted classes, career pathways, or arts specializations, were reported in the available data. The district brief turned up no recent notable changes or initiatives, so there is little to say about new directions or improvements. A parent evaluating this school should weigh the solid English outcomes and the small-town community setting against the math struggles and the lack of information on special education and English learner services.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 552%

School 52% · District 52%

▲ 19 pts above state median

Grade 641%

School 41% · District 43% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 12 pts above state median

Grade 730%

School 30% · District 25% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 833%

School 33% · District 28% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 18 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 570%

School 70% · District 72% · ▼ 2 pts below district

▲ 4 pts above state median

Grade 676%

School 76% · District 71% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 21 pts above state median

Grade 771%

School 71% · District 66% · ▲ 5 pts above district

▲ 17 pts above state median

Grade 865%

School 65% · District 64% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▲ 13 pts above state median

Science

Grade 854%

School 54% · District 45% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▲ 19 pts above state median

This schoolMarion County, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 5Lower-income60%Higher-income87%27 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income69%Higher-income88%20 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income59%Higher-income72%13 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income45%Higher-income64%19 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income27%Higher-income63%36 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income24%Higher-income39%14 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income31%Higher-income35%4 pp gap