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Hill City High School - 01

Hill City · SD · Hill City School District 51-2 · Public

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📋 At a glance

Programs & features
  • 📚 5 AP courses offered — Strong
  • ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
  • 🔢 2 calculus classes · 1 physics · 1 chemistry
Academic signals
  • 🎓 AP rigor: 64th percentile nationally
  • 📝 SAT/ACT participation: Bottom 21% by test-taker volume
  • 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 90% (Bottom 49% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)

Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.

💡

How Hill City High School - 01 compares for families

Solid mid-tier academic profile.

  • StatewideAP rigor at the 64th percentile nationally with 5 AP courses.
  • LocallySD students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+7 points).
  • vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: A.C.E. High Academy - 06, Custer High School - 01, Stevens High School - 42 and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor

AP + advanced-course offerings

Strong — solid AP program + advanced courses

64th percentile nationally

50th 90th ↑ this school
Less rigorMore rigorMost rigor
AP courses offered
5
Math ✓ · Science ✓
Advanced math classes
4
2 calculus · 2 advanced
Lab science classes
2
1 physics · 1 chemistry
Other rigor signals
✅ Dual-enrollment program

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).

SAT / ACT participation

CRDC federal data · 2020-21

Bottom 21% by test-taker volume

50th 90th
SAT/ACT test-takers
17
11th-12th graders who took 1+ college admissions test
Test-taking intensity
10.8
takers per 100 students in grades 9-12
Compared against
18,426
US high schools reporting SAT/ACT participation

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.

🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts

What % of students graduate on time?

Bottom 49% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate

50th 90th
4-year graduation rate
90%
Range: 80–100%
4-year cohort size
30
Students in the 9th-grade entry class tracked over 4 years
Compared against
17,988
US high schools reporting 4-year ACGR

Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.

👩‍🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC

Teacher experience & reliability

% inexperienced teachers (1st-2nd yr)
9.1%
Strong: experienced corps. New teachers rotate through but most have ≥3 years in.
% chronic teacher absence (≥10 days/yr)
0.0%
Strong attendance culture among teachers.

Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.

🏛️ Federal Title I context

Lower-need school

Not Title I eligible (FRPL < 25%)

19.0%
FRPL rate — % of students who qualify for the federal Free or Reduced-Price Lunch program. This is the underlying federal income-eligibility signal Title I designations are computed from (ESEA Sec. 1113).
0% (no FRPL) 35% TA · 40% Schoolwide 100% (universal FRPL)

<25% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Well below the Title I threshold; expect a higher-income student body on average.

Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.

Chronic absenteeism

Share of students absent 15+ days
25.3%
Elevated above the national average (~16%). Worth understanding — chronic absence compounds into dropout risk, transfer-out risk, and revenue loss.
Students absent 15+ days
40
Federal definition: absent (excused or unexcused) for at least 15 of ~180 school days — about 10% of the school year.

Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.

Counselor capacity

Student : Counselor
316:1
Above the ASCA 250:1 target but below the US median (~430:1). Capacity is workable.
Counselor FTE
0.5
Full-time-equivalent school counselors on staff.
Teacher FTE
8
Full-time-equivalent classroom teachers.

Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.

Enrollment trend & projection

Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).

If the recent trend holds…

At its recent rate of -2.4%/year, projecting from 2024's 158 students:

2025
154
2027
147
2029
140

A small or specialty program — naive trend math doesn't capture the school's full picture. Read the trend as directional, not predictive.

An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.

Nearby high schools — the local competition

The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.

SchoolTypeMilesHS enrollmentTrend
A.C.E. High Academy - 06
Custer
Public 11.0 16
Custer High School - 01
Custer
Public 11.3 272 -9.9%
Stevens High School - 42
Rapid City
Public 17.4 1,771 +2.6%
Rapid City Christian School
Rapid City
Private 17.9 357 +66.8%
Lead-Deadwood Career & Technical Education - 10
Nemo
Public 19.6 54
Lincoln Building - 44
Rapid City
Public 19.6 23
Central High School - 41
Rapid City
Public 20.4 1,998 +8.4%
Jefferson Building - 64
Rapid City
Public 20.6 1

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