The top reported proficiency rate is 53% in English language arts. The lowest is 42% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Brookside Primary School
Brookside Primary School sits in the heart of Waterbury Village, a walkable historic district on the National Register of Historic Places where municipal offices, the public library and museum, churches, and recreation facilities cluster within a few blocks. The school serves prekindergarten through fourth grade and is part of the Harwood Unified Union School District, which sends older students to Crossett Brook Middle School and Harwood Union High School on separate campuses outside the downtown core. For families with young children, this means the early grades are anchored in a genuine town center rather than on a sprawling campus, with the trade-off that the upper grades move to more isolated settings.
Waterbury itself is a town of three settlement areas. The Village is the compact civic and commercial heart. Colbyville, along the main highway corridor, mixes residential and commercial uses and is home to the Ben & Jerry's factory, one of Vermont's most visited tourist destinations. Waterbury Center has its own mixed-use character anchored by Cold Hollow Cider Mill. The town sits between Mount Mansfield and other peaks, and tourism surges during foliage season. The State of Vermont is a major employer through the Waterbury Office Complex, and the hospitality sector is a steady jobs driver. Interstate 89, U.S. Route 2, and a state route converge here, and Amtrak's Vermonter line stops in town with daily service between St. Albans and Washington, D.C. The town has spent years recovering from Tropical Storm Irene, which flooded downtown and inundated the former Vermont State Hospital grounds, and the state has since rebuilt the office complex. A recent dissolution of the Village as a separate municipality completed its merger with the surrounding town, consolidating governance.
Academically, Brookside's state assessment results from the most recent year show a mixed picture. In English language arts, fourth graders performed notably stronger than third graders, with a clear majority of tested fourth graders reaching proficiency. Third grade ELA was more middling. In math, both tested grades landed below half of students demonstrating proficiency, with fourth grade slightly lower than third. These are modest results for a Vermont primary school, and a parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly in mathematics, where both grades suggest room to grow. No trend data was available to show whether these numbers are improving or declining over time.
The school is small for its grade band, with a sizable prekindergarten cohort that makes up a substantial portion of total enrollment. The student body is almost entirely white, reflecting the broader demographics of Waterbury and much of central Vermont. A modest share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, lower than what many Vermont schools report. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status was not reported, so those populations cannot be characterized here. The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report, and no chronic absenteeism figure was available.
Housing in the area sits above both state and national benchmarks, with typical home values well into the upper range for the region. Estimated monthly mortgage costs exceed rental costs by a meaningful margin, which may shape who can buy into the attendance zone versus who rents. The local housing market has seen modest recent appreciation.
No data was available on course offerings, staffing ratios, discipline, or attendance, so those dimensions of school life cannot be described. The neighbor comparison set for Washington County districts did not produce usable proficiency or graduation benchmarks for this school, so there is no county-level positioning to report. What the available evidence does show is a small, village-centered primary school in a recovering, tourism-adjacent Vermont town, with ELA results that outpace its math results and a community context that blends state employment, seasonal tourism, and a walkable historic core.
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