Hilltop Elementary

Hilltop Elementary is an elementary campus of tight-knit scale in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, part of Rice Lake Area School District, enrolling 251 students in grades K through 4. Enrollment runs roughly 22% leaner than the state mean of about 323.

Across the 6 schools in Rice Lake Area School District (2,096 students total), Hilltop Elementary accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

Demographically, Hilltop Elementary lists that 76% of the student body identifies as White; the rest consists of 14% Hispanic, 5% multiracial, 3% Asian. The wider county runs roughly 92% White, putting the school's mix noticeably less White than the area baseline.

Looking at school resources, On paper, Hilltop Elementary has 24 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 10.6:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 14.7:1 average. An estimated 41% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Hilltop Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 52.2%, the actual is 56.7%, a residual of +4.5 points.

Across the wider county, Barron County reports that median household income runs about $65,933, roughly 23% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 7% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Hilltop Elementary is one of 36 public schools in Barron County (combined enrollment of about 7,199 students).

Rice Lake Middle is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.1 miles from this campus. 4 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, Hilltop Elementary comes 3rd of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 56.7%.

The campus sits in a town-based setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Over the past 7-year window, the student count edged down 3%: 259 students in 2018 compared to 251 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share fell from 84% to 76%. Class-load math has tightened: from 12.2:1 in 2018 to 10.6:1 in 2025.

On this page, posts here usually surface around open house dates, ride-share offers, and field-trip permission slips. Contributors range from current parents to recent graduates and teachers.