Emery High

Emery High is a public school serving 614 students in grades 9–12 in Castle Dale, a small Utah community, and is part of the Emery District. No other schools are located within 20 miles, so the most useful comparisons are with the district and Utah statewide results. The district ranks 46th of 92 Utah districts and has a 3-star rating, while the school received 2 stars and ranked 95th of 139 schools, in the 32nd percentile, for 2025–2026. This is a notable decline from the 62nd percentile in 2022–2023.

Despite the ranking decline, Emery High has solid completion outcomes. Its 2024–2025 graduation rate was 90.4%, above both the district’s 89.2% and Utah’s 89.8%. The dropout rate improved to 9.6%, better than the district’s 10.8% but above the state’s 8.5%. Chronic absenteeism has also improved substantially, falling from 42.6% in 2021–2022 to 26.2% in 2024–2025. However, the latest rate remains higher than Utah’s 23.8%, and attendance has fluctuated from year to year. Staffing has been fairly steady, with about 18.4 students per teacher.

Academic results are mixed and vary sharply by grade. Ninth-grade math is a standout strength: 44.1% of students were proficient, compared with 40.8% in the district and 39.4% statewide. In contrast, only 20.5% of tenth graders were proficient in math, 8.9 percentage points below Utah, and tenth-grade ELA and science also declined from the previous year. The school trailed the state in five of six latest subject-and-grade comparisons. Parents may therefore want to ask about tenth-grade instruction, math support, attendance interventions, and how the school is responding to recent score declines. Earlier results show the school has sometimes exceeded state performance, suggesting that improvement is possible rather than out of reach.