Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School

Located at 409 8th Avenue NE, in Hickory, North Carolina, Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School is a rural-scale four-year high school that educates 201 students (grades 9 through 12), run under Hickory City Schools. Enrollment runs roughly 74% smaller than the state mean of about 761.

Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School is one of 9 schools operated by Hickory City Schools, a district that serves 3,735 students overall.

Demographically, Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School shows that 53% of students identify as White, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Other groups include 22% Hispanic, 11% Black, 10% multiracial, 3% Asian. By comparison, Catawba County as a whole is about 75% White, so the school skews noticeably less White than its surroundings.

Looking at the economic backdrop, The school lists 13 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 15.2:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 19.6:1 average. Roughly 99% of students at Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. That share is north of Catawba County's rate of about 86%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.8%, the actual is 49.3%, a residual of +0.6 points.

In the broader community, the surrounding county (Catawba County) reports that median household earnings sit near $67,864, 26% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. Across Catawba County's 44 public schools (combined enrollment of about 22,392 students), Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Hickory High, roughly 0.4 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Among the 9 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School ranks 3rd on composite proficiency, ahead of the local average of 48.1%.

Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School operates from a downtown location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at Hickory Career Arts Magnet High School has expanded 27%, going from 158 students in 2018 to 201 in 2025. The Black share of enrollment shrank from 22% to 11% over that span. Class-load math has rose: from 8.1:1 in 2018 to 15.2:1 in 2025.

On this page, recent activity here tends to focus on enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.