Hillside Middle School

Hillside Middle School is a 6-8 campus of mid-tier scale in KALAMAZOO, Michigan, overseen by Kalamazoo Public Schools, serveing 476 students in grades 6 through 8.

Within Kalamazoo Public Schools, which oversees 26 schools and 12,227 students, Hillside Middle School is one campus in the system.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Hillside Middle School shows that the largest single group is Black at 44%, but no single group is in the majority; the rest reads as 36% White, 15% multiracial, 4% Hispanic. That is considerably more Black than the county at large, where the share is closer to 11%.

Looking at school resources, Hillside Middle School records 28 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 17.3:1. The state averages about 17.5:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. Around 60% of the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Kalamazoo County (around 45%), the school's rate is noticeably above typical.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, Hillside Middle School falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 39.7%; this one comes in at 27.7%, -12.0 points off the demographic line.

Zooming out to the county, community-level numbers for Kalamazoo County indicate median household income runs about $72,532, about 41% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. Hillside Middle School is one of 93 public schools in Kalamazoo County (combined enrollment of about 34,151 students).

Nearest neighbor: KingWestwood Elementary School, around 0.8 miles off. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Hillside Middle School comes 5th of 5 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 48.5%.

The school occupies a suburban site.

Five-year trend. Hillside Middle School's enrollment has fell 17% since 2018, when it stood at 575 (now 476). The Black share of enrollment contracted from 52% to 44% over that span. The student-to-teacher ratio fell from 18.8:1 in 2018 to 17.3:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, members of the Hillside Middle School community share and discuss open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.