Hammond Central High School
Hammond · IN · School City of Hammond · Public
Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Area Career Center → Hammond Academy of Science & Tech → Bishop Noll Institute/Catholic Dioece Of Gary → East Chicago Central High School → Munster High School → Excel Center - Hammond → Morton Senior High School → Highland High School →📋 At a glance
- 📚 9 AP courses offered — Elite
- 🔢 1 calculus classes · 5 physics · 5 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 71th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 59th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 77% (Bottom 25% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Hammond Central High School compares for families
Stronger-than-average college-prep profile.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor at the 71th percentile nationally with 9 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyIN students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+8 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Area Career Center, Hammond Academy of Science & Tech, Bishop Noll Institute/Catholic Dioece Of Gary and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
71th percentile nationally
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 · 2020-2159th percentile by test-taker volume
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 25% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
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
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
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program
40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.
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
Why this matters to enrollment: A low chronic-absence rate is the cleanest school-level signal of strong family connection, classroom culture, and student engagement — all upstream drivers of enrollment stability. 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
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 -1.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,814 students:
≈ 141 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $13,372 per student in district revenue, the 141 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $1,885,452/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Nearby high schools — the local competition
The closest high schools families here also consider, and where their enrollment is heading.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area Career Center Hammond |
Public | 0.3 | — | — |
| Hammond Academy of Science & Tech Hammond |
Public · charter | 1.1 | 294 | +5.4% |
| Bishop Noll Institute/Catholic Dioece Of Gary Hammond |
Private | 1.8 | 481 | — |
| East Chicago Central High School East Chicago |
Public | 2.7 | 1,049 | -5.2% |
| Munster High School Munster |
Public | 3.5 | 1,466 | -6.5% |
| Excel Center - Hammond Hammond |
Public · charter | 3.6 | 205 | +23.5% |
| Morton Senior High School Hammond |
Public | 3.8 | 1,446 | -16.4% |
| Highland High School Highland |
Public | 4.8 | 969 | -5.1% |