The top reported proficiency rate is 26% in English language arts. The lowest is 7% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Hazen Union High School
Hazen Union High School sits on Route 14 just north of Hardwick's village center, serving grades seven through twelve for Hardwick and surrounding towns in Caledonia County. The school is small for its grade span, with a tight distribution of students across the six grades. A substantial majority of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the student body is almost entirely white, with only a handful of students identifying as Hispanic, Black, or multiracial. Data on individualized education programs and English learner status was not available, so those pieces of the support picture are missing here.
State assessment results from the most recent year are limited. Vermont tested eighth-grade students in math, English language arts, and science through the Vermont Comprehensive Assessment Program, and the school's results in math were very low, with only a small fraction of eighth graders reaching proficiency. English language arts results for eighth grade were higher but still modest, with roughly a quarter of tested students proficient. Seventh-grade results in both math and English language arts were suppressed, and eighth-grade science was also suppressed. No multi-year trend data was available, so it is hard to say whether these results represent a persistent pattern or a single year. A parent may want to look into this further with the school, particularly given how thin the tested-grade picture is.
Graduation rate data was not available for this school. The comparison fact-set, which positions Hazen relative to districts in Caledonia County, could not compute a proficiency index because the cohort was too small, and both graduation rate and chronic absenteeism comparisons were inapplicable due to missing entity values. This means the school sits outside the available comparative framework, and a reader should not read that absence as a negative signal on its own.
Hardwick itself is a working Vermont farm town with a compact historic village center at the crossing of Routes 14, 15, and 16 along the Lamoille River. The Downtown Hardwick Village Historic District, listed on the National Register, gives the village core its character, with closely spaced homes, civic buildings, and small storefronts. The town was once a granite-finishing center that declined after the 1920s, and in recent decades it has reinvented itself around sustainable agriculture and food-based enterprise. The Vermont Food Venture Center, a shared-use food processing incubator, is a publicly reported economic anchor. The Hardwick Electric Department, town government, and the school district itself provide public-sector employment. There is no single large industrial employer. Walkability is concentrated in the village center; outside it, the town is rural and car-dependent, with dispersed settlement along state routes.
Housing in the area is more affordable than the Vermont statewide benchmark and the national benchmark, with typical home values well below both. The price-to-income ratio sits above four, and current mortgage rates make monthly carrying costs a real consideration for families buying into the area. No rental data was available for this location. Growth in Hardwick has been slow and flat rather than expansive, with incremental small-business and agricultural development rather than residential buildout.
The school does not carry charter or magnet designation, and Title I status was not reported. No data was available on course access, discipline, staffing, or attendance, which limits the picture of what happens inside the building day to day. Program offerings were not provided, so a family would need to go to the school directly for details on Advanced Placement, dual-enrollment, career pathways, or extracurriculars. What the available evidence describes is a small, rural, economically challenged secondary school in a town with a strong agricultural identity and a modestly priced housing market, serving a tight-knit community where the school is one of the civic anchors near the village core.
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