| Mill River Union High School | |
| Pushpin Map: |
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| Streetaddress: | 2321 Middle Road |
| Coordinates: | 43.547°N -72.9715°W |
| City: | North Clarendon |
| State: | Vermont |
| Schoolboard: | Mill River Unified Union School District |
| Zipcode: | 05759 |
| Url: | http://millriverschools.org/mru/ |
| District: | Mill River Unified Union School District |
| Principal: | Kaelyne Thompson |
| Principal Label1: | Assistant principal also |
| Fundingtype: | Public |
| Schooltype: | high school middle school |
| Grades: | 7–12 |
| Language: | English |
| Campus: | Rural |
| Mascot: | Minuteman |
| Colors: | Minuteman red, white, & blue |
| Founded: | 1975 |
| Enrollment: | 445 (2017-18)[1] |
| Faculty: | 32.67 FTEs |
| Ratio: | 13.62 |
Mill River Union High School, commonly known as Mill River or MRU is a public junior-senior high school in Clarendon, Vermont, in the United States. It is part of the Mill River Unified Union School District. MRUUSD includes the towns of Clarendon, Wallingford, Shrewsbury and Tinmouth. Other towns whose students attend Mill River include Ira, Ludlow, Middletown Springs and Danby.The current principal is Kaelyne Thompson.[2] The current superintendent of the district is Brian Hill.
The 2017 U.S. News & World Report ranked Mill River Union High School as one of the top 10 schools in Vermont. The ranking gave MRU a silver medal– which was awarded to only 10.3% of high schools nationally.
Mill River competes in Division III in Vermont in all sports. It competes in the local Marble Valley League (MVL).
Mill River's theater company is Stage 40, led by director Peter Bruno and a student board of directors. Each season it performs three shows, and helps the middle school (Stage 20) run a spring play. The 2007-2008 season included The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan. The fall show was an adaptation of Roald Dahl's The Twits, a knock off of the famous, James Besaw's The Tits. The 2009-2010 season included Splendor in the Grass, by William Inge, based on the film of the same name, directed by Elia Kazan; Discourse on Dissent, a series of shorts based on war themes; and The Witches. The Middle school did a performance of Alice in Wonderland. Other productions have included, Sam Shepard's Geography of a Horse Dreamer, Slavomir Mrozek's, Fox Hunt, and Ted Hughes', The Pig Organ.
Mill River Union High School's Music program is run by Kristin Cimonetti, Peter Roach, and Andrew Loose. Kristin conducts a senior choir of over seventy students. Kristin also conducts three honors ensembles; the Chamber singers (bass and treble voices), the Clef Hangers (bass voices), and the Tempo Tantrums (treble voices). Andrew conducts a junior choir of over forty students, three honors ensembles; Jazz Combo, Cantiamo (bass unchanged), and Vivace (treble unchanged), and a collegiate music theory class. Peter teaches senior and junior band, as well as two honors ensembles; Jazz Band and Jazz Lab. Many students who participate in the music program are accepted into the New England festival, All-State festival and District five music festivals annually.[3]
Mill River's Visual Art department is led by Karen Swyler & Jonathan Taylor and includes comprehensive programs in Drawing, Pottery, Photography (darkroom and digital), and AP (Advanced Placement) Studio Art. Art facilities consist of two classrooms with separate pottery, painting/photo, and darkroom studios. Students have 1:1 access to college-level facilities from pottery studio & wheels, state-of-the-art MacBook Pro laptops, Adobe Creative Cloud, loaner DSLRs, 35mm & medium format film cameras, painting studio and photo darkroom. All art courses offer personalized, differentiated pathways supporting advanced work to level 3 & 4 classes, often culminating in AP Studio Art portfolios in drawing, painting, photography, new media, and 3D sculpture. Student work is exhibited every year at Fall, Winter, & Spring school shows as well as at the Castleton University Arts Engagement Festival and the Chaffee Art Center's Annual Student Art Exhibit. Trips to National Portfolio Day, Middlebury College Art Museum, Vermont Folklife Center, The Clark, Mass MOCA, and New York City are coordinated with the Stafford Technical Center. Jonathan Taylor's students have scored well on the AP Studio portfolio and been admitted to top college programs and art schools across the country.