The top reported proficiency rate is 47% in English language arts. The lowest is 20% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on J. J. Flynn School
J. J. Flynn School sits on North Avenue in Burlington, serving prekindergarten through fifth grade as part of the Burlington School District. It is a neighborhood elementary school in Vermont's largest city, a place shaped by its identity as a regional college town. The University of Vermont and Champlain College anchor the local economy alongside the UVM Medical Center, and the city's downtown, centered on the Church Street Marketplace pedestrian mall and a transformed waterfront park on Lake Champlain, ranks among the most walkable in the country. Corporate names with national reach, from Burton Snowboards to Lake Champlain Chocolates, are headquartered here. The housing market in the school's zip code sits well above the state and national benchmarks, with typical home values in the upper range for the region and rents that are likewise elevated. For a family considering this area, buying a home here costs more than the state average, while renting remains relatively close to the monthly cost of carrying a mortgage at current rates.
The school's enrollment is moderate for an elementary building in this district. A majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which marks Flynn as a school serving a broadly working- and middle-income population within a city that, despite its reputation and corporate presence, also has a meaningful share of residents below the poverty threshold. The student body is predominantly white, with Black, Asian, multiracial, and Hispanic students making up the remainder. This is a more racially mixed school than many in Vermont, reflecting Burlington's role as the state's most diverse city. Data on students receiving special education services and English learners was not available, so a parent looking for details on those supports would want to ask the school directly.
On state assessments, Flynn's English language arts results are the stronger part of the picture. Across the tested grades, roughly half to a majority of students reached proficiency, with the upper grades performing better than the lower ones. Reading and writing appear to be where the school is holding its ground. Math is a softer area. Proficiency in the middle tested grade was quite low, and even the stronger grades showed only a minority of students meeting the standard. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking how math instruction is structured and what supports are in place for students who are behind. Science, tested only in fifth grade, landed in a middling range, with somewhat more than a third of students proficient. No trend data was available, so it is hard to say whether these results are improving, stable, or declining. The comparison set among Chittenden County districts could not produce a proficiency index for this school because the cohort was too small, and graduation and chronic absenteeism comparisons do not apply to an elementary school.
Because Flynn serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate, no AP or dual-credit data, and no high school course access to report. Those pathways come later, within the Burlington School District, which is in the middle of a publicly reported building boom. Voters approved a major bond in 2022 for a new high school and technical center, now under construction along North Avenue and on schedule to open in fall 2026. The district also recently renovated an airplane hangar at Burlington International Airport into a new aviation and career-technical education center, which opened for students in 2025, and completed a renovation of the Integrated Arts Academy with new kindergarten classrooms and geothermal heating. At the policy level, the district adopted a Restorative Code of Conduct aimed at reducing suspensions and eliminating racial disparities in discipline, and has publicly reported achieving that goal for the first time.
What this means for a Flynn family is that the school feeds into a district actively investing in its secondary campuses and rethinking discipline. The immediate question at Flynn is academic: ELA is a relative strength, math is a concern, and the school sits in a neighborhood where housing costs run high relative to the rest of Vermont. The student population is diverse by Vermont standards, and the share of students from lower-income households is substantial. A family drawn to Burlington's walkability, cultural life, and college-town energy would find Flynn as one of the city's neighborhood elementaries, with real work to do in math and a foundation in literacy that looks more solid.
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