The top reported proficiency rate is 67% in Science. The lowest is 47% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Crossett Brook Middle School
Crossett Brook Middle School sits on VT Route 100 in Duxbury, a small rural town in Washington County spread along the Winooski River and the flanks of Camels Hump. The school serves grades five through eight and is part of the Harwood Unified Union School District. It functions as more than a school in this community. Each March, Duxbury residents gather here for Town Meeting, the direct-democracy tradition where voters handle budgets and local business. With no traditional downtown or commercial district in Duxbury, the school is one of the town's primary civic anchors, alongside the Town Office a short distance down the same road.
The setting shapes daily life. Duxbury is very low density, with homes and civic buildings scattered along VT Route 100 and US Route 2, which follows the Winooski River along the northern edge of town. Much of the western half of Duxbury falls within Camel's Hump State Park, and the mountainous terrain has historically limited both agriculture and commercial development. Outdoor recreation, from hiking and backcountry skiing to trout fishing and hunting, figures prominently in local identity. The nearby village of Waterbury, just north along I-89 and Route 2, serves as the de facto commercial center for residents. Public transit does not serve Duxbury directly.
Academically, Crossett Brook's state assessment results from the most recent school year tell a story of growth across the middle grades. In English language arts, proficiency rises steadily from fifth grade through eighth, with the oldest students reaching a strong level of mastery. Science performance follows a similar upward arc, with eighth-grade science proficiency particularly high. Mathematics is the softer area. Roughly a third of fifth graders reach proficiency, and while the rate climbs through sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, math proficiency remains below the levels the school posts in English and science. A parent weighing this school for a child who tends to find math challenging may want to ask the school how it supports students in that subject, particularly in the earlier middle grades. Participation rate data was not available from the state, so it is not possible to characterize how fully the tested population represents the enrollment.
The school is small for its grade band, with a roughly even distribution across the four grades. The student body is nearly entirely white, which is consistent with Duxbury and the surrounding Washington County communities but means limited racial or ethnic diversity in the peer environment. Just over a quarter of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a modest share that sits below what many Vermont schools report. Data on individualized education programs and English learner counts was not available, so those populations cannot be characterized here. No graduation rate applies, because the school does not extend through high school. Duxbury students continue to Harwood Union High School for secondary grades.
Housing in the Duxbury zip code sits above both the Vermont state benchmark and the national benchmark, reflecting the area's appeal as a residential community within commuting range of Waterbury, Montpelier, and the Burlington region. The estimated monthly mortgage on a typical home, assuming a conventional down payment, runs higher than typical rent in the area, and the price-to-income ratio suggests that buying here requires a solid household income. Median household income in the broader economy has been rising, and Duxbury's own income levels have grown substantially over recent census periods. The town is experiencing slow, modest growth, constrained in part by its mountainous terrain and the large share of land held within the state park. No major new housing developments surfaced in publicly reported sources.
Crossett Brook Middle School does not have charter or magnet status. Title I status was not reported in the available data. Discipline, course access, staffing, and attendance details were not provided, and the county-level comparison set was too small to position the school's proficiency or other outcomes against neighboring districts in a meaningful way. What the available picture does show is a small, community-anchored middle school in a quiet, outdoors-oriented town, with solid and improving results in English and science and a mathematics trajectory that a prospective family would want to understand before enrolling.
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