The top reported proficiency rate is 44% in English language arts. The lowest is 19% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Johnson Elementary School
Johnson Elementary School sits on College Hill in the village of Johnson, a small Lamoille County town where the Lamoille and Gihon Rivers meet. The school serves prekindergarten through sixth grade and is part of the Lamoille North Modified Union School District. It is a conventional public school, not a charter or magnet, and draws its enrollment from a community that blends rural mountain surroundings with a compact village center anchored by Northern Vermont University-Johnson, the Vermont Studio Center, and Johnson Woolen Mills.
The town's character shapes the school's setting. Route 15 runs east-west through the village, and the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail bisects the community, giving families access to a long multi-use recreational corridor that connects to the broader region. The village has its own electric, water, sewer, and fire services, while the surrounding town is rural residential, with mountainous, forested terrain and dispersed settlement. The university campus sits on a hill above the village, within walking distance but physically separate. Walkable life in Johnson is concentrated in the village core, where small eateries, antique shops, and the woolen mills line the business district. Publicly reported sources note that the town has grown modestly over the past two decades, with slow but steady population gains through the 2020 census. The regional ski economy in neighboring Stowe and Cambridge contributes to the broader area but sits outside Johnson itself.
Johnson Elementary is a small school, and that scale is part of its identity. Enrollment is modest across the grade bands, with prekindergarten and kindergarten making up a large share of the student body. The school's demographics are predominantly white, reflecting the broader community, with small numbers of students identifying as Hispanic, multiracial, Black, or Asian. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which points to a student body with real economic need and places the school in a category where food security, wraparound services, and community support are part of daily operations. Data on special education and English learner populations was not available, so those dimensions of the student body are not described here.
Academic results from the most recent state testing cycle are limited. Vermont's Comprehensive Assessment Program tests grades three through six in math and English language arts, and grade five in science. For Johnson Elementary, most grade-level results were suppressed, which typically reflects small tested populations where public reporting is withheld to protect student privacy. The one reported figure is third-grade math, where a small share of tested students reached proficiency, and third-grade ELA, where a somewhat larger share did. Because the remaining grade-level results are suppressed, it is hard to form a full picture of academic performance across the school from state data alone. A parent evaluating this school would want to ask the administration directly about classroom-level results, growth measures, and how the school supports students who are below grade level, since the publicly reported testing picture is incomplete.
No graduation rate applies here, because Johnson Elementary does not include high school grades. Chronic absenteeism and discipline data were not available. The county-level comparison set, drawn from Lamoille County's districts, could not produce a proficiency index for this school because the cohort was too small to compare meaningfully. That means there is no neighbor benchmark to position Johnson Elementary against its peers in the county on tested outcomes.
The housing market around the school is more affordable than the state as a whole. Home values in the zip code sit below the Vermont benchmark, and the price-to-income ratio suggests that buying a home here is less of a stretch than in many parts of the state, though current mortgage rates make monthly costs a real consideration for families. The district's proposed budget for the coming fiscal year includes an increase in education spending per pupil, which in Vermont translates directly to homestead property taxes. That is a factor for families thinking about the long-term cost of living in the district.
What the picture adds up to is a small, village-centered elementary school in a community with a strong arts and educational identity, real economic diversity among its families, and limited public testing data to judge it by. The town offers outdoor access, a walkable village, and cultural institutions unusual for a place of its size. The school's academic profile is hard to read from the available state results, so a family considering Johnson Elementary should look beyond the test scores and talk with staff about how the school serves its particular student population.
See more original research from School Decision →