Essex High School
Essex Junction · VT · Essex Westford Educational Community Unified Union SD #51 · Public
📄 Shareable scorecard →Similar nearby schools
Most similar nearby schools
Burlington Technical Center → Northwest Technical Center → Green Mountain Technology and Career Center → Cold Hollow Career Center → Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center → Central Vermont Career Center → Randolph Technical Career Center → North Country Career Center →📋 At a glance
- 📚 16 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 14 calculus classes · 9 physics · 14 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 90th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 84th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 82% (Bottom 29% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Essex High School compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 10% nationally with 16 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyVT students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+4 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Burlington Technical Center, Northwest Technical Center, Green Mountain Technology and Career Center and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
For Parents
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
90th percentile nationally
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-2184th percentile by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
Bottom 29% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Mixed-income school
Below Title I eligibility threshold (FRPL < 35%)
25-34% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. Below the federal Title I threshold but a meaningful share of the population is income-eligible for free lunch.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
University of Vermont
The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $19,343/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.
Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: A low chronic-absence rate is the cleanest school-level signal of strong family connection, classroom culture, and student engagement — all upstream drivers of enrollment stability. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of +0.3%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,224 students:
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue upside
At $26,143 per student in district revenue, the 20 students projected to be gained by 2029 represent ≈ $522,860/year in additional funding.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Most similar nearby high schools
The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burlington Technical Center Burlington |
Public | 6.3 | — | — |
| Northwest Technical Center Saint Albans |
Public | 21.5 | — | — |
| Green Mountain Technology and Career Center Hyde Park |
Public | 24.6 | — | — |
| Cold Hollow Career Center Enosburg Falls |
Public | 32.0 | — | — |
| Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center Middlebury |
Public | 34.1 | — | — |
| Central Vermont Career Center Barre |
Public | 37.1 | — | — |
| Randolph Technical Career Center Randolph |
Public | 45.0 | — | — |
| North Country Career Center Newport |
Public | 54.2 | — | — |