The top reported proficiency rate is 36% in English language arts. The lowest is 18% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Heartwood Public Charter School
Heartwood Public Charter School is a young, very small public charter school serving grades kindergarten through eight in Jefferson, New Hampshire. It opened in July 2022 as a tuition-free option for North Country families, starting with grades K through 5 and planning to grow into a full K through 8 span. Publicly reported information indicates that expansion has proceeded, with the school now listed as serving through grade 8, though current enrollment data shows no students yet in grades 7 or 8. The school's educational model centers on nature and place-based learning, with experiential learning, community service, and an integrated curriculum. For a family drawn to outdoor, hands-on, community-rooted schooling, this is the defining feature to understand about Heartwood.
The enrollment is small, with roughly a dozen or fewer students per grade and only a handful in the upper elementary and middle grades. The student body is nearly entirely white, with a small number of students identified as two or more races. No other racial or ethnic groups are represented in the reported data. Information on free or reduced-price lunch eligibility, special education enrollment, and English learner status was not available, so it is not possible to characterize the school's socioeconomic makeup or the share of students receiving specialized services.
State assessment results from the most recent school year are largely limited. New Hampshire administers the NH SAS in math, English language arts, and science across several grade levels. For Heartwood, most grade-level proficiency results were suppressed, which often reflects very small testing populations and privacy protections rather than a comment on performance. Grade 6 is the only grade with reported results. In math, a small share of tested students reached proficiency, and in English language arts, roughly a third did. These results come from a very small number of test-takers, which means a single student's performance shifts the picture considerably. A parent looking at these numbers should treat them as an early snapshot from a school still building its grade span, not as a settled trend. No multi-year trend data was available, which is consistent with how recently the school opened.
Because Heartwood serves only elementary and middle grades, there is no graduation rate to report. No data on discipline, course access, staffing, attendance, or Title I status was available. Program offerings beyond the nature-based model were not provided. A locale brief for Jefferson was not available, so this account cannot describe the surrounding community, housing market, or economic context in the detail that would help a family weigh where they would live. No comparison fact-set positioning Heartwood against neighboring districts was provided either, so the school cannot be placed against its local peers here.
What the available picture supports is this. Heartwood is a new, small charter school built around a specific educational philosophy, still in the early years of establishing its full grade span and its academic track record. The assessment data is too thin and too recent to form a strong judgment about academic outcomes. Families interested in this school would benefit from asking how the nature-based curriculum translates into measurable learning, how the school plans to support students who are not yet meeting proficiency benchmarks, and what the upper-grade experience will look like once grades 7 and 8 enroll students. Those are open questions the available data does not answer.
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