Winooski - EdTribune VT - Vermont Education Data

Orleans Southwest and Winooski Had Vermont's Lowest Local Graduation Rates

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Orleans Southwest SU^↗ had Vermont's lowest valid local four-year graduation rate in 2025 at 61.3%. Winooski SD^↗ ranked second-lowest at 66.0% among 44 supervisory unions and districts.

The next-lowest rate was White River Valley SU^↗ at 69.2%. Two Rivers SU^↗, Franklin Northeast SU^↗ and Burlington SD^↗ followed at 71.0%, 71.2% and 71.2%.

Similar latest ranks, different recent paths

Orleans Southwest moved from 64.2% in 2023 to 70.0% in 2024, then fell to 61.3% in 2025. Its endpoint change was a 2.9-point decline.

Winooski moved in the other direction. Its rate rose from 56.8% in 2023 to 59.0% in 2024 and 66.0% in 2025, a 9.2-point endpoint gain. White River Valley finished 1.1 points below its 2023 rate after a one-year rise to 87.0% in 2024.

Against Vermont's 82% statewide rate, Orleans Southwest was 20.7 points lower in 2025. Winooski was 16.0 points lower, and White River Valley was 12.8 points lower.

Those gaps describe published outcomes. They do not show why the systems arrived there, and the sharply different paths warn against treating the bottom of the ranking as a single pattern.

System aggregates are not school designations

Vermont's official Annual Snapshot technical manual defines comprehensive-support eligibility at the school level. Supervisory-union and district aggregate ranks are a different reporting grain, so this local ranking cannot establish any system's formal accountability designation.

The package contains four school rows within the three lowest local systems. Orleans Southwest includes Hazen UHS at 60.0% and Craftsbury Schools at 66.7%. Winooski High School matches its district at 66.0%, while White River Valley High School matches its supervisory union at 69.2%.

The Orleans Southwest aggregate cannot be reconstructed from those two school percentages alone because local cohort counts are not available in the package rows. The same missing denominator prevents a comparison of how many individual outcomes produced each rate.

What the aggregate data can and cannot say

The file identifies ranks, paths and gaps from the state rate. It does not measure cohort composition, transfers, course completion, attendance, student services or other possible mechanisms. Those questions require separate evidence.

The bounded conclusion is that Orleans Southwest and Winooski occupied the bottom two positions in the 2025 local aggregate file. One declined from its 2023 level while the other improved, leaving two low latest-year rates with different trajectories.

Data source: Vermont Agency of Education four-year adjusted cohort graduation results for 2023 through 2025. The agency explains access to the official files on its Annual Snapshot data-download page.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

Burlington's Graduation Rate Fell 13 Points in Two Years

Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Burlington SD^↗'s four-year graduation rate fell from 84.2% in 2023 to 71.2% in 2025. The 13.0-point decline was the largest among 43 Vermont supervisory unions and districts with valid rates at both endpoints.

The change unfolded in two steps. Burlington's rate moved to 75.0% in 2024, then declined another 3.8 points in 2025. The statewide rate was 82% at both available endpoints.

A local reversal against a flat state benchmark

Burlington started 2023 at 2.2 points above Vermont. It finished 2025 at 10.8 points below the state, a 13.0-point swing in its position relative to the statewide rate.

Vermont has no published 2024 state row in this series, so the statewide comparison uses 2023 and 2025. Burlington has local rates for all three years.

The local file also reports Burlington High School at the same rate as the district in each year. That is a structural feature of this record: the district's graduation measure is represented by its reporting high school. It should not be read as two independent results.

The steepest change in a stable comparison set

The comparison universe includes exact district identifiers with valid four-year rates in both 2023 and 2025. It contains 43 supervisory unions and districts.

Franklin Northeast SU^↗ had the next-largest decline, from 83.5% to 71.2%, a 12.3-point change. Harwood's supervisory district fell 10.8 points. Burlington's 13.0-point decline remained the largest without imposing a size cutoff or dropping smaller systems.

In the full 2025 local file, Burlington had the sixth-lowest valid rate among 44 supervisory unions and districts. Orleans Southwest SU^↗, Winooski SD^↗, White River Valley SU^↗, Two Rivers SU^↗ and Franklin Northeast SU were lower.

The data locates the change, not its cause

Local cohort counts are not available in these package rows. Without them, the public aggregate cannot show how many individual outcomes produced the rate change or how sensitive each year's percentage was to cohort size.

The file also does not identify course completion, transfers, attendance, student services or other possible mechanisms. Each could be investigated with different evidence. None can be inferred from the graduation rate alone.

The next Burlington cohort will matter for distinguishing a one-period shock from a longer slide. For now, the verified claim is narrower: the district recorded Vermont's largest 2023-to-2025 decline in the stable local panel.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

Vermont's 40-Point Attendance Gap: Same Size, Opposite Outcomes

Thu, 28 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Correction (May 29, 2026): An earlier version stated that the chronic absenteeism range among mid-sized districts spanned "from Harwood's 17.0%." The lowest rate in that group belongs to Mt Abraham at about 16%. The passage has been corrected.

Harwood Unified Union Supervisory District^↗ enrolls 1,794 students. Rutland City SD^↗ enrolls 1,931. They are nearly identical in size, both supervisory districts in rural Vermont, both serving communities of similar scale. In 2023-24, Harwood's chronic absenteeism rate was 17.0%. Rutland City's was 56.7%. The gap between them is 39.7 percentage points.

That is not a rounding error or a temporary fluctuation. It is a structural divide that persists across years and resists simple explanation.

The comparison

At Harwood, 305 of 1,794 students missed at least 10% of school. At Rutland City, 1,095 of 1,931 did. Roughly the same number of families, the same state education system, the same pandemic. The outcomes could not be more different.

Add a third point of comparison: Addison Central SD^↗, 30 miles southwest of Harwood and geographically closer to Rutland. Addison Central enrolls 1,757 students and posts a 19.0% chronic rate. Three districts, all between 1,700 and 1,950 students, with rates of 17.0%, 19.0%, and 56.7%.

The trajectories deepen the comparison. All three spiked in 2021-22: Harwood to 26.2%, Addison Central to an unknown figure (no reliable 2022 data), and Rutland City to 66.6%. But the recovery paths diverged. Harwood dropped 9.2 points in two years. Rutland City dropped 9.9 points, slightly more. Yet the starting points were so far apart that Rutland's faster improvement did not close the gap.

Size is not the explanation

Vermont's chronic absenteeism data shows almost no correlation between district size and chronic rate. The largest districts have some of the lowest rates (Champlain Valley^↗ at 9.9%, Essex Westford^↗ at 11.7%) and the highest rates belong to mid-sized districts. The problem is not scale. Districts with 770 students (Winooski^↗, 52.5%) and districts with 3,166 students (Southwest Vermont^↗, 37.0%) struggle equally.

Among mid-sized districts, those with 1,000 to 2,500 students, the range runs from about 16% (Mt Abraham, the lowest) up to Rutland City's 56.7%. Harwood sits near the bottom of that range at 17.0%. No variable visible in the data fully accounts for the spread.

What the gap reflects

The most likely drivers are the ones the state's chronic absenteeism data does not measure directly: poverty rates, housing instability, access to healthcare, substance use in the community, and the availability of adults who can ensure a child gets to school each morning.

Rutland has struggled with opioid addiction at rates that exceed most of Vermont. The region's economy has contracted as marble quarries and rail operations declined. Housing costs have risen while wages have not kept pace. These are conditions that make school attendance harder, not because families do not value education, but because the logistics of daily life are more precarious.

Harwood, by contrast, sits in the Mad River Valley, a tourist economy with ski resorts, small farms, and a population that skews toward outdoor recreation. The community is not wealthy in Vermont terms, but it has different economic dynamics. More two-parent households. More access to transportation. Different public health challenges.

Why it matters

A 40-point gap between equally-sized districts in a state of 80,000 students undercuts any statewide intervention strategy. A policy designed to reduce chronic absenteeism from 24% to 15% may work in Harwood, where the remaining challenge is nudging an already-reasonable rate lower. It is unlikely to have the same effect in Rutland City, where the majority of students are chronically absent and the root causes extend far beyond school walls.

Vermont's advantage has always been its smallness: districts where superintendents know families, where school communities are tight-knit. The 40-point gap suggests that this advantage has limits. Knowing the families does not solve transportation barriers. Tight-knit communities do not overcome generational poverty. The data does not tell Vermont how to close the gap. It tells Vermont the gap exists, which is the prerequisite for any honest conversation about what it would take.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

19 Vermont Districts Improved Their Chronic Absenteeism Every Year Since the 2022 Peak

Thu, 14 May 2026 12:00:00 GMT

One number in Vermont's chronic absenteeism data stands out for the right reason: 19 of 26 districts with complete three-year data improved their chronic rate every single year from the 2021-22 peak through 2023-24. That is a 73% consecutive-improvement rate. The size of the gains varied widely, but roughly three-quarters of districts moved in the right direction without interruption.

Who improved, and by how much

The spread is wide. Kingdom East SD^↗ leads with a 28.1 percentage point improvement, dropping from 50.6% to 22.5% in two years. White River Valley SU fell 25.5 points (45.9% to 20.4%). St. Johnsbury cut 23.9 points. Springfield cut 22.3. These are large reductions: rates that were above 45% are now in the low 20s.

At the other end, Mt. Abraham Unified School District improved by 4.3 points (20.2% to 15.9%). Montpelier Roxbury fell 6.9 points. Addison Northwest dropped 9.6. These are smaller gains, but in the context of a persistent statewide problem, sustained improvement of any magnitude is notable.

The pattern across all 19 is consistent direction, not consistent magnitude. What unites Kingdom East's 28-point drop and Mt. Abraham's 4-point drop is that both districts got better in 2023 and then got better again in 2024, without stalling or reversing in between. In a problem as complex as chronic absenteeism, sustained directional improvement may matter more than the size of any single year's gain.

Still above the line

Improvement is not recovery. Of the 19 districts that improved every year, 7 still have chronic rates above the statewide average of 24.3%. Rutland City SD^↗ improved from 66.6% to 56.7%, a 9.9 point drop, and remains the highest-rate district in the state. Southwest Vermont SU^↗ fell from 51.9% to 37.0% and still has more than a third of its students chronically absent.

The other 12 improvers have already pulled below the state average. They include some of Vermont's larger operations: Champlain Valley SD^↗ (9.9%), Harwood Unified Union (17.0%), Mt. Abraham (15.9%), and Addison Northwest (17.0%). These are predominantly Chittenden and Addison County districts, the state's more affluent corridor.

The seven that did not

Seven districts either stalled or reversed. Winooski SD^↗ saw the sharpest move: its rate jumped from 29.2% to 52.5% in a single year. Hartford SD^↗ rose from 32.0% to 37.0%. Essex North SU, a small career-technical district, fluctuated. The remaining four showed mixed trajectories: improvement one year, regression the next.

The divergence between the 19 improvers and the 7 non-improvers does not map neatly onto any single variable. Size, geography, poverty level, and urbanicity are all mixed. Winooski's reversal appears connected to immigration enforcement anxieties specific to its diverse community. Hartford's increase has no similarly clear external driver.

The deceleration within improvement

Even among the 19 consistent improvers, the pace is slowing. Many showed large drops between 2022 and 2023 but smaller drops between 2023 and 2024. Southwest Vermont: -14.0 points then -0.9 points. Two Rivers: -11.4 then -0.1. Central Vermont: -11.2 then -1.4. The easy gains are exhausted. What remains are the students whose attendance barriers are more deeply rooted: medical, economic, familial, or psychological.

This mirrors the statewide pattern: a 10.5-point improvement in the first year of recovery, a 2.6-point improvement in the second. The 73% consecutive-improvement rate shows Vermont districts are making real progress. The deceleration suggests the students still above the 10% threshold face attendance barriers that do not yield to the same interventions that brought the first wave back.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.

Winooski's 23-Point Chronic Absenteeism Spike Coincides With Immigration Crackdown

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Winooski^↗ is a one-square-mile city entirely surrounded by Burlington, home to about 7,300 people and a single school district. It is Vermont's most racially diverse community: 57% of students are people of color and 33% receive multilingual services. In 2022-23, the district was heading in the right direction. Its chronic absenteeism rate had fallen from 38.2% to 29.2%. Then something broke.

In 2023-24, Winooski's chronic rate surged to 52.5% — a 23.3 percentage point increase that is, by a wide margin, the largest one-year spike of any district in Vermont. Of 770 enrolled students, 404 missed at least 10% of school. Winooski is now the only district in the state whose chronic rate is higher than it was at the 2021-22 pandemic peak.

The numbers in context

While Vermont as a whole improved from 26.9% to 24.3% between 2022-23 and 2023-24, Winooski moved in the opposite direction by a factor that defies normal year-over-year variation. The next-largest increase in the state was Hartford SD^↗'s 5.0 percentage point rise. Winooski's jump was nearly five times that.

Among districts of similar size — 500 to 1,200 students — Winooski's rate is an outlier by roughly 20 points. Springfield SD^↗, with 1,201 students, sits at 30.5%. Slate Valley^↗, with 1,215, is at 21.7%. Winooski, with 770, is at 52.5%.

What happened in 2023-24

The data alone cannot prove causation, but the timeline aligns with a period of intensifying federal immigration enforcement that directly affected Winooski's community. Teachers in the district documented student anxiety about ICE. The district's superintendent was detained by federal authorities. Families with precarious immigration status faced a choice between visibility and safety.

In February 2025, Winooski became the first district in Vermont to pass a "sanctuary school" policy by a 4-0 board vote, formally committing to protect student information from federal agencies and to not allow immigration enforcement activities on school grounds. The Vermont Agency of Education issued a statement supporting the district.

The sanctuary policy postdates the 2023-24 attendance data by several months. It was a response to conditions that were already affecting families — conditions the chronic absenteeism data now quantifies.

The count tells the human story

In 2022-23, 230 of 787 Winooski students were chronically absent. In 2023-24, that number nearly doubled to 404 of 770 — an increase of 174 students in a district that shrank by 17. The swing means that roughly 190 students who were attending regularly one year crossed the chronic threshold the next.

In a district this small, 190 students is not a statistical abstraction. That represents a shift in which specific children show up at specific schools. It means teachers notice. It means the cafeteria is emptier. It means the attendance phone calls stack up.

The missing dimension

Vermont's chronic absenteeism data does not include race or ethnicity breakdowns. The state reports by gender, income status, special education, and English learner status, but not by the demographic dimension most relevant to Winooski's story. Whether the spike concentrated among immigrant families, among specific language communities, or spread broadly across the district cannot be answered with public data.

Statewide, LEP students saw only an 8.5% reduction in chronic absence from the 2022 peak to 2024, compared to 36.2% for the overall student body. Winooski's LEP population is large enough that this statewide pattern likely plays a role locally.

What comes next

Winooski's 2024-25 data will be the first test of whether the sanctuary policy has begun to reverse the spike. The policy was adopted in February 2025, midway through the school year. A drop would not prove causation. But a second year above 50% would mean the barriers in Vermont's most diverse district have shifted from episodic to structural, and that the sanctuary policy alone is not enough.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.