Original Research by School Decision on Samuel Morey Elementary School
Samuel Morey Elementary School sits in Fairlee, Vermont, serving prekindergarten through fifth grade as part of the Rivendell Interstate School District. It is a small public elementary school by any measure, with a total enrollment that reflects a genuinely intimate setting. Each grade level carries roughly a dozen to two dozen students, which means children here are likely to be known by name across the building rather than lost in a large cohort.
The school's student body is almost entirely white, with only a handful of students identifying as Hispanic or multirace. This is characteristic of many Orange County communities, and a family moving from a more diverse district would notice the difference. About a modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, pointing to a student population that is mixed but not predominantly low-income. We looked for data on students with individualized education programs and English learners, but those figures were not reported, so we cannot characterize the school's special-education or language-support population from available records.
Academically, the picture is largely blank for the most recent state testing cycle. Vermont's Comprehensive Assessment Program results for math, English language arts, and science at Samuel Morey were suppressed across all tested grades, meaning proficiency rates, scale scores, and participation numbers are not publicly available for this school. Suppression at this size often reflects the nature of a small school where reporting a grade-level result could identify individual students, so a parent should not read the missing results as a sign of poor performance. It simply means the state did not release usable numbers. The neighbor comparison against districts in Orange County could not be computed for the same reason, and we found no alternative proficiency index to position the school against its peers. A parent weighing academic outcomes will want to ask the school directly how students are progressing, since the public data does not answer that question here.
Because Samuel Morey ends at fifth grade, there is no graduation rate to report. That metric applies to high schools, not to an elementary building. Attendance and chronic-absenteeism figures were also not provided, nor were discipline, course-access, or staffing details. We looked for program offerings and found none listed in the data, so we cannot describe enrichment, intervention, or specialist programs from what was supplied.
Fairlee itself is a small Vermont town, and the locale research we attempted came back empty across character, walkability, employers, civic anchors, and growth. Rather than invent a portrait, we will say plainly that the community context was not available. What we can speak to is the housing market around the school. Home values in the zip code sit near the Vermont state benchmark and slightly above the national one, with a recent modest year-over-year dip. The price-to-income affordability ratio is in a moderate range nationally, and current mortgage rates hover in the mid-sixes. Rental data was not available for this area. For a family considering a move, Fairlee's housing market looks roughly in line with the broader state, neither a standout bargain nor obviously expensive.
On the district side, we searched for parent-relevant changes within Rivendell Interstate School District and found nothing confirmed. The research budget was exhausted before lasting shifts could be verified, so we left that section out rather than guess.
What a parent is left with is a very small, predominantly white elementary school in a quiet Vermont town, with a free-or-reduced-price-lunch population that suggests a mix of working and middle-class families. The academic results are unavailable publicly, which is the single largest gap. If knowing test scores or district-level trends matters to your decision, the best next step is to contact Samuel Morey and Rivendell directly. The school's small scale may be its defining feature, and that closeness can be a real asset for younger children, but the data here is too thin to say much more.
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