Overview

Burlington High School is a public high school in Burlington, Vermont's largest city, part of the Burlington School District in Chittenden County. NCES lists it as a regular, open school within Supervisory Union 015, reachable at (802) 864-8411.

NCES records 417 of 921 students as free-lunch eligible and 110 as reduced-price eligible -- roughly 57% of enrollment combined, a higher share than either East High School in Salt Lake City (55%) or South Burlington High School nearby, where 231 of 793 students qualify (about 29%).

Academics

No school-specific Vermont Agency of Education data was located for this profile. Check the Agency's school reports directly for current results.

Neighborhood

The school's mailing and physical address is on Institute Road in Burlington's 05408 ZIP code, in the city's New North End. Burlington's population is recorded as 44,432 by NeighborhoodScout. DoorProfit reports a citywide poverty rate of 25% and unemployment of 4.2%.

Crime & safety

Sources agree Burlington's crime rate is elevated and disagree completely about what that means.

NeighborhoodScout reports 51 crimes per 1,000 residents, describes Burlington as having one of the highest crime rates in America across communities of all sizes, and states more than 99% of Vermont communities have a lower rate, with a 1-in-20 chance of victimization. AreaVibes reports a total crime rate 125% above the national average, averaging 5.81 crimes daily (0.58 violent, 5.22 property), with a 1-in-209 violent-crime chance. City-Data puts the 2025 crime index at 303 against a US average of 228.4 -- higher than 89.9% of US cities -- while noting the rate fell 5% from 2024, with one homicide, and that the last five years show rising violent crime alongside falling property crime.

An AreaVibes resident survey of 59 people found 71% saying there was too much crime and they did not feel safe walking alone at night, against 29% reporting virtually no crime.

One provider's letter grades cannot be reconciled with its own numbers. This directory has flagged loose grade-to-index coupling at DoorProfit on the North Charleston and Houston profiles. Burlington makes the problem unmistakable.

DoorProfit's Burlington crime map states the city has 9 neighborhoods at Grade A and just one below it. But its individual neighborhood pages report, for the same city:

• Downtown Burlington: grade A-, overall crime index 191 — "91% above the national average" — with the page simultaneously stating "Yes — this neighborhood is safe," that it is "safer than 10% of neighborhoods in Burlington," and that "it is one of the higher-crime neighborhoods in Burlington." Its highest-concern category is murder, index 193.
• Waterfront: grade A-, index 195, 95% above the national average and 54% above the Burlington average, with violent crime at 193 and property at 182.
• City Bluffs: grade A+, index 53, 47% below the national average.

An A- is being awarded to a neighborhood 95% above the national average and to one 91% above it whose leading concern is murder, while the same scale awards A+ to a neighborhood 47% below. The grades are not tracking the indices. A reader scanning grades alone would conclude Burlington's Downtown and Waterfront are safe; the provider's own numbers say they are roughly twice the national crime rate.

A second problem: DoorProfit gives City Bluffs a population of approximately 12 residents and Waterfront approximately 324. Per-capita crime rates computed over a denominator of 12 people are statistically meaningless -- a single incident would swing the index enormously. The provider publishes these to the same apparent precision as figures for neighborhoods of 30,000.
A second source is projecting, not reporting. CityRating publishes a "Burlington crime rate for 2026" but states in its own notes that the figure "was projected from 13 years of actual data" and that "the last year of actual available crime data, as reported above, was 2019." A 2026 figure extrapolated from data ending in 2019 spans the pandemic and its aftermath -- a period during which crime patterns shifted substantially in many US cities. The site also notes arson figures are reported inconsistently and that zero values may indicate missing data rather than no incidents.

Our calculated rating

We don't publish a single proprietary score. No academic data was located; the safety sources include one whose letter grades contradict its own indices, one publishing per-capita rates over a 12-person denominator, and one projecting 2026 figures from 2019 data. See our ratings methodology.

Sources

  1. NCES Common Core of Data, Burlington High School (500282000063), 2024-25 school year (address, enrollment, classroom teachers FTE, ratio, locale, county, lunch eligibility, phone, supervisory union).
  2. NCES Common Core of Data, South Burlington High School (500747000294), 2024-25 school year (comparison figures).
  3. NeighborhoodScout, Burlington VT crime rates and statistics (rate per 1,000, victimization odds, state and national comparison, population).
  4. AreaVibes, Burlington VT crime rates, citing FBI UCR 2024 data (total crime rate versus national average, daily incident breakdown, violent-crime odds, resident survey).
  5. City-Data.com, Burlington Vermont crime (2025 crime index, year-over-year change, homicide count, five-year violent and property trends).
  6. DoorProfit, Burlington VT crime map (citywide grade distribution, poverty and unemployment rates).
  7. DoorProfit, Downtown Burlington, Waterfront, and City Bluffs neighborhood crime pages (grades, indices, category breakdowns, populations, median incomes).
  8. DoorProfit, South Burlington VT crime statistics (separate municipality; comparison figures).
  9. CityRating.com, Burlington Vermont crime statistics (2026 projection and its stated 2019 data cutoff).
  10. Wikipedia articles for Burlington High School (Massachusetts), Burlington High School (Wyoming), Burlington City High School (NJ), Burlington Township High School (NJ), and Northern Burlington County Regional High School (NJ) -- cited on the Vermont state page for the name-collision caution.