The top reported proficiency rate is 54% in English language arts. The lowest is 46% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Jay/westfield Joint Elementary School
Jay/Westfield Joint Elementary School sits on Revoir Flats Road in the small mountain town of Jay, Vermont, in Orleans County. It is a public pre-kindergarten through sixth-grade school operated as a joint venture serving children from Jay and the neighboring town of Westfield. The arrangement is a cooperative one, pooling the two rural communities' young children into a single building before they move on to North County Union Junior High and High School for grades seven through twelve. The total enrollment is small, with class sizes in the single digits or low teens across most grades, and a pre-kindergarten group that is itself a sizable share of the school.
The town of Jay is a rural community on the Canada-US border, part of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom. It is defined almost entirely by Jay Peak Resort, a four-season complex with skiing, an indoor water park, an NHL-size ice arena, a championship golf course, lodging, restaurants, and recreational facilities that exist on a scale far beyond what a town of its permanent population would typically support. Most local economic activity and employment center on the resort. The built environment is low-density and car-dependent, with a tiny downtown corridor along the main route where the town hall, community center, and food shelf are located. The school sits near that civic core, while the resort occupies its own separate mountain campus.
Academically, the school's state testing picture is limited by its size. Vermont administers the Vermont Comprehensive Assessment Program in grades three through six for math and English language arts, with a science assessment in grade five. For this school, proficiency results for grades three, four, and five in both math and English language arts were suppressed, and the grade five science result was also suppressed. Suppression at this scale typically reflects very small tested populations, where reporting results could identify individual students. The only reported results come from grade six: a little under half of tested sixth graders reached proficiency in math, and a little over half reached proficiency in English language arts. The tested group in each subject was small, so these results should be read as a limited snapshot rather than a stable trend. Parents considering this school may want to ask staff how they track and support student progress across the earlier grades, given that the public data does not provide a full picture.
The student body is predominantly white, with small numbers of Hispanic students and students of two or more races. Just under half of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status were not reported, so the picture of special-population services is incomplete here.
The school does not have a graduation rate, which is expected since it serves only elementary grades. Chronic absenteeism and discipline data were not available. Program offerings, staffing details, and course access information were not provided in the available data.
The Jay/Westfield Joint Elementary School District has seen steady budget growth over several years, with a sharp increase approved for FY2025 followed by a much smaller increase for FY2026. Publicly reported meeting results show the district's spending has climbed meaningfully over four years, shifting a greater property tax burden to local residents. This is a pattern a parent or resident may want to understand in relation to what the school offers day to day.
Housing in the Jay zip code carries a typical home value slightly below the Vermont state benchmark and roughly in line with the national figure, with a strong year-over-year appreciation rate. Rental data was not available for this area. The housing market is shaped by the resort economy, which can draw seasonal and investor interest alongside the small permanent community.
For a family drawn to rural northern Vermont life, this is a very small school in a resort town where the ski mountain and its amenities dominate the local identity. The academic data is thin because the cohorts are thin, and a parent would be well served by talking directly with the school about how learning looks across all the grades, not just the one where results were large enough to report.
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