Summary:
Vernal, Utah, has two listed high schools serving grades 8–12: Uintah High, serving grades 9–12, and Ashley Valley Educ. Center, serving grades 8–12. Both are part of the Uintah District and together enroll about 2,130 students. Uintah High is the larger comprehensive school, with 1,843 students, while Ashley Valley has 287 students and may serve a different type of student or program.
Uintah High is the stronger overall performer based on the available current information. It ranked 46th among 139 Utah schools in 2025–2026 and had an 89.3% graduation rate, close to the statewide 89.8% rate and above the district’s 86.6%. Its dropout rate was lower than the district’s, and its chronic-absenteeism rate was 31.6%, considerably better than the district’s 50.9%, though still above Utah’s 23.8%. Academically, the school exceeded state proficiency rates in four of six reported subject-grade areas. Its strongest results were among 10th graders, especially in mathematics, while 9th-grade English Language Arts and science were areas for improvement.
Ashley Valley Educ. Center’s most important current concern is attendance: 81.1% of students were chronically absent, compared with 31.6% at Uintah High and 23.8% statewide. This large difference suggests that attendance support should be a major priority. Current graduation, dropout, and test-score data were not provided for Ashley Valley, so its present academic performance cannot be fairly compared with Uintah High. Older rankings were low, but they are more than a decade old. Parents should also note that the reported student-teacher ratio for Ashley Valley appears unusual and should be verified. Overall, Uintah High offers more complete evidence of stable, upper-middle statewide performance, while Ashley Valley requires more current outcome data and focused attention to attendance.
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