Hillside High

Hillside High is one of the sizable secondary schools in Durham, North Carolina, part of Durham Public Schools, with 1,433 students on its rolls from grades 9 through 12. Enrollment runs roughly 88% bigger than the state mean of about 761.

Durham Public Schools comprises 55 schools with combined enrollment of 31,797 students; Hillside High is among them.

Looking at the student body, Hillside High reports that the largest single group is Black, at 60% of enrollment. Other groups include 32% Hispanic, 4% multiracial. By comparison, Durham County as a whole is about 32% Black, so the school skews visibly more Black than its surroundings.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 82 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 17.4:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 19.6:1 average. About 100% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator.

With demographic context factored in, Hillside High falls in the UNDERPERFORMING tier of the BeatsExpectations residual. Given its student profile, a typical campus would land near 48.4%; this one comes in at 29.0%, -19.3 points off the demographic line.

Zooming out to the county, ACS estimates for Durham County put median household earnings sit near $82,316, about 55% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 8%. Across Durham County's 74 public schools (combined enrollment of about 46,109 students), Hillside High is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is Durham School of Technology, roughly 0.0 miles away. Within five miles, there are 8 other public schools. On composite proficiency, Hillside High comes 9th of 9 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 56.8%.

Geographically, the school is in a downtown area.

Trend over the last 7 years. Hillside High's enrollment has climbed 5% since 2018, when it stood at 1,370 (now 1,433). Over the same period, the Black share fell from 77% to 60%. Class-load math has grew: from 15.2:1 in 2018 to 17.4:1 in 2025.

On the community side, posts here usually surface around pickup logistics, teacher feedback, and after-school programs. Members of the school community can share what they know.