The top reported proficiency rate is 60% in English language arts. The lowest is 32% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Bellows Free Academy Middle/high School (fairfax)
Bellows Free Academy Middle/High School sits on Hunt Street in Fairfax, a small community in Franklin County, Vermont. It serves grades seven through twelve as part of the Fairfax School District, drawing students from the surrounding town into a single combined middle and high school building. The school is a traditional public school, not a charter or magnet, and its enrollment is modest for a school spanning six grade levels.
The student body is largely homogeneous. Nearly all students are white, with only a handful identifying as Asian, Black, Hispanic, or two or more races. About a third of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which gives a sense of the economic mix within the community. The school does not report data on students with individualized education programs or English learners, so those population figures are not available here.
On Vermont's state assessments, the most recent results show a school that performs reasonably well in English language arts but more modestly in math and science. In seventh grade, roughly six in ten students reached proficiency in ELA, and eighth graders showed a nearly identical result. Math was weaker: fewer than half of seventh graders met the proficiency bar, and eighth grade math results were suppressed, likely due to small testing numbers or privacy protections. Science results for eighth grade were the lowest of the reported subjects, with only about a third of students scoring proficient. A parent weighing these results may want to look into how the school supports math and science instruction in the upper grades, particularly as students prepare to transition into high school coursework.
The school does not report a graduation rate, nor does it provide data on chronic absenteeism, discipline, course access, staffing, or advanced program offerings. We looked for information on AP courses, dual-enrollment options, career pathways, or other academic programs, but none was available in the data provided. Similarly, no multi-year trend data was available, so it is not possible to say whether these proficiency levels represent improvement, decline, or stability over time. These gaps are common for smaller Vermont schools where reporting categories are thin and certain metrics are suppressed or simply not published.
The community context is partly visible through the housing market. Homes in the Fairfax area carry a typical value above both the Vermont state benchmark and the national benchmark, suggesting a relatively expensive housing market for the region. Mortgage costs at current rates are substantial relative to typical incomes, with the price-to-income ratio sitting well above the national figure. Rental data was not available. For families considering a move into the district, housing costs are a real factor, and the school's profile is best understood in that context: a small, relatively affluent Vermont town with a single secondary school serving the community's children.
Comparing the school to others in Franklin County proved difficult. The data sets available positioned Bellows Free Academy against the county's districts, but the comparison cohort was too small to generate a meaningful proficiency index, and the school's graduation and attendance figures were missing. So there is no reliable county-level ranking or peer benchmark to report here.
What the available data does convey is a small, predominantly white secondary school in a Vermont town where housing costs run above state and national levels. ELA results are a relative strength, math is middling, and science is a soft spot. The absence of program data, graduation rates, and trend information limits the picture a parent can assemble from the numbers alone. Families considering Bellows Free Academy would do well to visit the school directly and ask about the academic pathways available in the upper grades, how the school supports students who are not yet proficient in math and science, and what the graduation and post-graduation outcomes look like for recent classes.
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