Summary:
The Van Buren School District is home to one high school, Van Buren High School, which serves grades 10 through 12 with a total enrollment of 1,232 students in a single-campus setting.
Van Buren High School shows a mix of strengths and challenges. The school boasts a strong graduation rate of 94.3% and a very low dropout rate of 0.4%, both better than state averages. It also consistently outperforms the state in English Language Arts (44.6% proficient vs. 39.4% state) and Reading (43.7% vs. 40.4% state). However, the school's state ranking has been volatile, dropping from 66th in 2024-2025 to 92nd in 2025-2026, losing a star rating in the process. The most critical weakness is in Geometry, where only 14.4% of students are proficient—nearly half the state average of 26.4%. This is a school-specific issue, as the district's overall Geometry score (30.7%) is actually above the state average. Biology proficiency also declined from 40.9% to 38.2% over the same period.
Despite having a favorable student-teacher ratio of 10.7:1 and per-student spending of $12,386, the school's academic proficiency in math and science lags behind its ELA performance. The high graduation rate contrasts with the fact that a majority of students are not proficient in Geometry (85.6% not proficient) and Biology (61.8% not proficient), suggesting a potential gap between graduation requirements and state assessment standards. For parents, this means Van Buren High School offers strong literacy instruction and a supportive environment for keeping students on track to graduate, but families should be aware of the significant challenges in math, particularly Geometry, and the recent decline in science scores that may require additional attention or tutoring.
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