The top reported proficiency rate is 49% in English language arts. The lowest is 35% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Ferrisburgh Central School
Ferrisburgh Central School sits along Route 7 in the rural Addison County town of Ferrisburgh, serving prekindergarten through sixth grade as part of the Addison Northwest Unified Union School District. The town itself is spread across roughly sixty square miles of dairy farms, hayfields, and wooded stretches, with twenty-one miles of Lake Champlain shoreline. There is no traditional downtown or walkable commercial core. Settlement is dispersed across the town center, North Ferrisburgh, and Basin Harbor, and daily life runs on cars. The town offices and the school cluster along the highway, and older students continue on to Vergennes Union Middle/High School in the adjacent city of Vergennes, a short drive south. The Ferrisburgh-Vergennes Amtrak station, at the junction of Route 7 and Route 22A, connects residents by rail to Burlington, Middlebury, and points farther south.
The school is small, with a modest total enrollment. A substantial prekindergarten cohort accounts for a large share of that enrollment, which gives the building a distinct early-childhood character. The student body is predominantly white, with a small number of students identifying as Hispanic or multiracial. About a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status was not reported, so those population shares are unknown here.
State assessment results from the most recent year show a mixed academic picture. In English language arts, proficiency rises steadily across the tested grades. Third and fourth graders sit below the midpoint, but by fifth grade about half of tested students reach proficiency, and sixth grade shows a clear jump, with a solid majority proficient. That upward trajectory in the upper grades is a genuine strength and suggests the school is building literacy effectively as students move toward middle school. Math follows a similar pattern. Third and fifth grade proficiency sits below the midpoint, and fourth grade is lower still, but sixth grade rebounds strongly, with more than half of tested students proficient. Science, tested only in fifth grade, came in below the midpoint, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school to understand how science instruction is sequenced. Participation rates were not reported for any tested grade, and multi-year trend data was not available, so it is not possible to say whether these results represent improvement or decline over time. The tested cohorts are small, which means a few students moving in or out can shift results noticeably from year to year.
Because the school serves only through sixth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and no high school course access data such as AP or dual-credit offerings applies here. Those questions become relevant once students move on to Vergennes. We looked for district-level strategic priorities or recent changes through the district brief but found little of lasting impact documented in publicly reported sources, so that context is left out rather than guessed. Locale classification, Title I status, discipline data, staffing figures, attendance and chronic absenteeism rates, and charter or magnet status were either not reported or not applicable, and those gaps are named as missing rather than filled.
The housing market in Ferrisburgh carries real cost. Typical home values run well above both the state and national benchmarks, and the price-to-income ratio sits above five, meaning the market demands a relatively strong income to buy in. Year-over-year home values have dipped modestly, which may reflect softening demand rather than any fundamental shift in the town's rural character. Rental data was not available, so the rent picture is incomplete. Property taxes and housing costs here are part of the tradeoff for living in a quiet agricultural-residential town with lake access, two state parks, and cultural institutions like the Rokeby Museum and the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum.
For a family considering Ferrisburgh Central School, the fit depends on what they want from a small rural elementary. The school offers a tight-knit, early-childhood-heavy environment in a town where agriculture and lakeshore define the setting. Academic results are uneven in the lower grades but build convincingly by sixth grade, particularly in literacy. The small cohorts mean families should expect year-to-year variation and should ask the school directly about how it supports students in the years where proficiency lags. The transition to Vergennes for middle and high school is a built-in feature of the pathway, and families will want to understand that next step as part of their planning.
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