The top reported proficiency rate is 29% in English language arts. The lowest is 4% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Cabot School
Cabot School is a single-building public school serving pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade in the small rural town of Cabot, in the northeast corner of Washington County, Vermont. It is the only school in the Cabot School District, and its enrollment is small enough that each grade has roughly a dozen or fewer students. The school sits at 25 Common Road, near the village common, and is tightly woven into the civic geography of the town. The Willey Memorial Building, which houses the public library and town offices, is a short walk away on Main Street. This is a community where school, town government, and village life share the same few blocks.
The town itself is compact and walkable around that village center, with a grocery and deli, a hardware store, a restaurant and pub, and a volunteer fire department. Cabot Creamery, the nationally known cheddar cooperative, is the dominant employer and shapes the local economy. Beyond the village, the town spreads across rural roads, working farmland, and forest. Hiking and snowmobile trails, a town forest, and Molly's Pond State Park give the area its outdoor character. There is no public transit. The population has been essentially stable, and the 2025 Town Plan emphasizes preserving the town's rural identity and compact village center. Housing in the zip code sits below both the Vermont and national benchmarks, with a price-to-income ratio that suggests moderate affordability by current standards, though mortgage costs at prevailing rates are a real consideration for families moving in.
The student body is predominantly white, with a small number of students identifying as multiracial, Black, Hispanic, Asian, or American Indian and Alaska Native. A substantial share of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on individualized education programs and English learners was not reported, so those population details are not available here. The school is not a charter or magnet school, and Title I status was not reported.
Academically, the available state assessment data from the Vermont Comprehensive Assessment Program is limited because of the school's small class sizes. Several grade-level results were suppressed, which is typical when the number of tested students is low and privacy rules apply. Among the results that were reported, proficiency was low across math, English language arts, and science. In math, the reported third-grade and fifth-grade proficiency rates were very low. In English language arts, the reported third-grade and fifth-grade rates were higher but still below what one would hope to see. Fifth-grade science proficiency was also low. These are very small cohorts, so a single student's performance shifts the picture considerably, and parents reading the numbers should keep that in mind. Still, the pattern across the reported grades suggests the school is working through real academic challenges, particularly in math. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, asking how instruction is structured in multi-age classrooms and what supports are in place for students performing below grade level.
The school's pre-K through 12 structure under one roof is a defining characteristic. Younger and older students share a building, which can create a close-knit environment where families stay connected to the same school community for their children's entire education. It also means the school functions as both an elementary and a secondary institution with a small faculty. No data on advanced coursework, career pathways, or dual-credit offerings was provided, so those program details are not available here. A family with a high school student would want to ask directly about what upper-grade coursework and extracurricular opportunities are available and how the school handles the constraints of a small secondary program.
No graduation rate was reported for Cabot School. No chronic absenteeism data was available. The neighbor comparison set, which would position the school relative to other districts in Washington County, could not be computed because the cohort was too small. No recent parent-relevant district changes were found in the available research. The comparison fact-set label is "relative to districts in Washington County," but the underlying metrics were not applicable for this school.
What a family gets at Cabot School is a small, rural, community-embedded education where children grow up alongside the same classmates and where the school is literally part of the village. The trade-off is that the academic results currently available are weak, the program is small by necessity, and data gaps are frequent because of the school's size. Families considering Cabot should visit, talk with teachers and the principal about how the school supports students at different levels, and ask specifically about math instruction, upper-grade options, and what the daily experience looks like in classrooms where a handful of children make up an entire grade.
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