The reported proficiency rate for Science is 72%.
Original Research by School Decision on Moretown Elementary School
Moretown ElementarySchool sits at 940 Route 100B in the small rural town of Moretown, Vermont, serving prekindergarten through sixth grade as part of the Harwood Unified Union School District. The town office sits right next door on School Street, and the library shares a building with the town hall, so the school is physically at the center of what civic life this community has. Moretown itself is a dispersed, low-density residential town with one general store doubling as a gas station, deli, and informal community gathering spot, a few small farms, a clapboard mill, and three churches. Most working residents commute to Montpelier or Burlington, and there are no large local employers. The town was hit hard by Hurricane Irene, which flooded more than sixty homes and buildings including the school, and recovery and modernization efforts have been ongoing since.
The school is small, with total enrollment in the mid-one-hundreds. Prekindergarten is the largest single grade, and the remaining grades each carry a similar, modest cohort of students. The student body is nearly entirely white, with only a handful of students from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. A small share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, well below what many Vermont elementary schools see. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status was not available, so those populations could not be characterized here.
On state assessments through the Vermont Comprehensive Assessment Program, most results for this school were suppressed. Math proficiency rates for grades three through six and English language arts rates for the same grades were all suppressed, a pattern that often reflects very small tested cohorts at each grade level in a school of this size rather than any judgment about performance. The one reported result was fifth-grade science, where a strong majority of tested students reached proficiency. That single data point is encouraging but limited, and a parent wanting a fuller picture of academic outcomes would want to ask the school directly about its math and reading results, since the state did not publish them.
No graduation rate applies here, because the school does not serve high school grades. Chronic absenteeism figures were also not available. The neighbor comparison set, drawn from Washington County districts, could not position this school on overall proficiency or graduation because the relevant values were missing or the cohort was too small. So there is no county-level benchmark to offer for academic performance.
Housing in Moretown is expensive relative to both state and national norms. The typical home value sits well above the Vermont median and comfortably above the national median, and estimated monthly mortgage costs are substantial. Rent data was not available for this location. The broader economic backdrop shows a national unemployment rate holding steady and mortgage rates in the mid-six-percent range, so financing a home here requires a solid income. The town's population has grown slowly over the past decade with recent estimates suggesting a slight decline, and no major new housing developments were identified.
What this school offers is a small, intimate elementary setting in a tight-knit rural community where the school is literally adjacent to town government. The peer environment is homogeneous and the class sizes are small. The one academic signal available, fifth-grade science, is a strong one, but the absence of published math and reading results means a parent would need to go to the school or district for a complete academic picture. This is a place suited to families who value rural quiet, a close community, and a small school where their child will be known, and who are comfortable with the trade-offs that come with a very small town.
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