Hillsboro Middle/high School, Hillsboro KS

Original Research by School Decision on Hillsboro Middle/high School

Hillsboro Middle/High School serves grades six through twelve under the Durham-Hillsboro-Lehigh district, housed in a single building in the small Marion County city of Hillsboro. The school enrolls a little over three hundred students, making it a small combined middle and high school by any measure. The student body is predominantly white, with a modest Hispanic share and very small numbers of Asian, Black, and multiracial students. More than a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price meals, a rate that reflects the local economic base.

The town itself is compact, with a traditional grid layout and Grand Avenue as its main commercial and civic spine. Hillsboro is home to Tabor College, a private Mennonite Brethren institution, which brings a student population into the community and has shared athletic facilities with the high school. The local economy is anchored by education, manufacturing, and agriculture, with Tabor College and the school district as the largest employers. Housing in the area is substantially more affordable than state or national medians, and the local market has seen notable year-over-year appreciation, though the overall population has been stable with a slight downward trend. The district itself showed no evidence of recent bond elections, curriculum overhauls, or other major parent-relevant changes in publicly available records.

Academically, the picture is mixed and grade-dependent. On the Kansas Assessment Program, middle school math proficiency starts below half of students meeting the bar in sixth grade, rises to just under half in seventh, and reaches a bit over half in eighth. English language arts follows a similar upward trajectory from roughly two in five proficient in sixth grade to well over half in seventh and eighth. Science in eighth grade shows about half of students scoring proficient. The overall proficiency index, which averages across tested subjects and grades, places Hillsboro Middle/High above the midpoint among districts in Marion County, though the county is small and the range between the lowest and highest performers is relatively narrow. Due to the change in state cut scores, these results are not directly comparable to prior years, so trend data is unavailable.

The combined middle and high school structure means students move through the building over seven years, a setup that can provide continuity and familiarity but also means younger students share a campus with older adolescents. The school offers no charter or magnet designation, and its Title I status is not reported. Data on special education identification, English learner services, chronic absenteeism, and discipline were not available in the provided records, so a parent may want to ask the school directly about how it supports students with IEPs and how it tracks attendance patterns.

Hillsboro Middle/High does not report a graduation rate in the data provided, which is an absence worth noting. The school serves grade twelve and should have a rate available from the state; a family considering the high school years may wish to request that figure from the district office. Without it, the primary academic signal comes from the state assessment results at the middle school level, which show a school where proficiency climbs as students move through the grades and where overall performance sits comfortably within the middle of a small county pack. The setting is a stable, small-town community with a college presence and affordable housing, and the school is a centerpiece of that community rather than a separate campus.

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Academic performance

State test results and graduation outcomes.

Graduation rate (ACGR)

>=90%Cohort of 46 students · Class of 2021

The federal source publishes a banded range instead of an exact rate when the graduating cohort is small enough that an exact number could risk identifying individual students.

How this school compares to all schools in this state

Each dot is one school’s SY 2020-21 graduation rate, binned by integer rate. Taller columns mean more schools at that rate. This school is highlighted.

348 schools plotted. 12 additional schools' rates are federally suppressed and not shown. Data: EDFacts SY 2020-21.

Math

Grade 640%

School 40% · District 40%

▼ 1 pts below state median

Grade 748%

School 48% · District 48%

▲ 13 pts above state median

Grade 856%

School 56% · District 56%

▲ 21 pts above state median

English language arts

Grade 642%

School 42% · District 42%

even with state median

Grade 757%

School 57% · District 57%

▲ 16 pts above state median

Grade 858%

School 58% · District 58%

▲ 21 pts above state median

Science

Grade 852%

School 52% · District 52%

▲ 15 pts above state median

This schoolDurham-Hillsboro-Lehigh, 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 6Lower-income35%Higher-income48%14 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income46%Higher-income61%15 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income38%Higher-income67%29 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 6Lower-income35%Higher-income44%10 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income15%Higher-income61%46 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income31%Higher-income67%35 pp gap