At Issue
Rural Hillman High overcomes challenges to build solid foundation for success
Staff explores many avenues to find what it takes to help students reach their potential
Hillman Junior/Senior High School Counselor Kim Sumerix helps students resolve social and academic challenges. Here, he listens to some students who stopped by his office to talk about friends. Sumerix is the only counselor at the award-winning school, which enrolls fewer than 300 students in grades seven through 12.
HILLMAN—Built in the middle of a field on an old dairy farm, Hillman Junior/Senior High stands out—and not just because it’s the biggest building in sight.
Student test scores are solid. The teachers are highly qualified. Parents and community members show up for conferences as well as athletic events.
It’s the kind of place where everyone knows when a student is having a bad day, and they work together to help get him back on track. When a Hillman graduate suffered a serious medical emergency
this year, residents of this rural northeastern Michigan county—one of the poorest in the state—contributed thousands of dollars to help pay the bills.
Family atmosphere
“We have a real sense of family here,” says Kim Sumerix, a counselor for the school’s 275 students.
Parents and students agree.
“I love it here,” said sophomore Kim Bedient, who transferred midway through the first semester to Hillman from neighboring Alpena, which has more than 1,500 students enrolled at its high school.
“People are friendly here.”
By some measures, Hillman Junior/Senior High School is among the best in the nation. When U.S. News & World Report released its first list of the country’s best high schools, Hillman made the cut.
The magazine analyzed academic and enrollment data from more than 18,000 public high schools. The analysis took into account how well each school’s disadvantaged students did and whether the school was successful in providing college-level coursework.
Hillman received high marks for helping disadvantaged students. (Almost two-thirds of the students here receive free or reduced-price lunches, a key indicator of family poverty. More than 10 percent of its students are eligible for special education services, above the national average.)
“We’re very good at getting the kid who doesn’t want to go to college a job and getting the kid who wants to go to the University of Michigan there,” said Scott Cordes, who’s been teaching at Hillman for 23 years. “We build a solid foundation.”
Overcoming challenges
But there are significant challenges, too. With just 15 teachers, including two shared with the elementary school, and limited state funding, Hillman offers few electives. It doesn’t have any advanced placement classes, widely considered a measure of academic prowess.
Hillman receives the base foundation grant—just $7,200 per student—from the state. And like many other schools, it has cut staff and programs, including an agriculture program, business electives and foreign language. Some of the cuts have been budget related, and some decisions were forced by state and federal mandates that emphasize core academic courses over non-tested electives.
When the school adds a foreign language teacher so it can meet new high school curriculum requirements, the educator can expect to wear many hats, as just about everyone else here does.
Cordes, for example, teaches English, government, economics, speech and world history. The principal is also the district’s superintendent, athletic director and technology coordinator.
“Could you imagine teaching Algebra 1 all day?” says Cordes, who also serves as president of the Hillman Education Association.
Technology helps bridge some of the challenges. At least 40 percent of this year’s seniors are earning high school and college credits simultaneously through dual enrollment programs with Alpena Community College, Brigham Young and Penn State universities and other postsecondary programs.
Pushing post-high school plan
Sumerix, who used to teach agriculture, pushes Hillman high schoolers to make a post-high school plan. Students are asked repeatedly over the years about their job interests to help staff identify relevant coursework.
Even after students graduate—and the vast majority successfully complete high school here (school staff were hardpressed to identify a single dropout in recent memory)—Sumerix and other school staff often stay in touch with them. Post-graduation interviews help identify subjects and classes that are relevant to college and job success.
“We try to find whatever it takes to make them successful,” says Principal Jack Richards.