Carroll High School

Northwest Allen County Schools, 3701 Carroll Road, Fort Wayne; grades nine through twelve; established 1969, the Carroll Road building opened 1970

Origins: Carroll was born of the Indiana School Reorganization Act of 1959. Lake, Eel River and Perry townships combined into Northwest Allen County Schools, organized in 1965, and in 1967 the school board voted to merge the Arcola and Huntertown high schools into a single new school south of Huntertown. The last Huntertown seniors graduated in 1968. Carroll's first class graduated in 1969, before the new building was finished, and those students attended Huntertown High School. The school took its name from Carroll Road, the rural arterial connecting U.S. Route 33 and State Road 3 across northern Allen County. Its first boys basketball team, coached by Herm Moyer, went 15 and 6 in 1969 and won the Allen County Athletic Conference.

The Building: Three dates attach to Carroll, and they describe three different things. The 1967 date in district listings belongs to the board vote and the construction period. The institution dates to 1969 and its first graduating class. The building itself opened a year later: Superintendent Chris Himsel laid out the district's anniversary sequence in 2018, with 2020 marking fifty years since the district first opened the current building. The campus grew in layers. A neighboring middle school, built in 1987 by the district's own listing (one school history gives 1984, unreconciled), was absorbed as a freshman campus by the fall of 2004, and the fieldhouse and large auditorium were added in 2009. An expansion begun in 2023, about $50 million of a $178 million district program, added some 70,000 square feet and renovated 30,000 more, with room for another 500 students.

Growth: Carroll's senior class numbered 240 in 1971 and about 450 in 2012. The freshman class that entered in the fall of 2017 numbered 659 and was expected to become the district's first graduating class above 600. Whole school enrollment was 2,200 in 2013 to 2014 and reached 2,623 in 2024 to 2025 by the National Center for Education Statistics count, with 145 classroom teachers. The district's own estimate for 2026 to 2027 is 2,649 students.

The District: Northwest Allen serves Lake, Eel River and Perry townships, about 8,100 students district wide in 2022 to 2023 and growing. On the Carroll Road campus the district runs two linked units, Carroll High for grades ten through twelve and the Carroll High Freshman Center for grade nine, though federal statistics carry Carroll as a single grades nine through twelve school. The superintendent is Wayne Barker.

Athletics: The Chargers' own history page traces their conferences from the Allen County Athletic Conference, 1969 to 1989, through the Northeast Hoosier Conference, 1990 to 2014, to the Summit Athletic Conference from 2015. Baseball won back to back Class 4A state championships under coach Dave Ginder, beating Indianapolis Cathedral 1 to 0 in nine innings in 2010 at 26 and 6, and 5 to 3 in 2011 at 32 and 2, after a Class 3A runner up finish in 1999. Boys cross country won its first state title in 2016, scoring 71 points to Carmel's 117 under coach Phil Yoder, after runner up finishes in 2008 and 2012. The girls followed with consecutive state championships in 2018 and 2019, also under Yoder, closing a run of four runner up finishes in six years.

Today: Carroll operates its two unit campus with the 2023 to 2026 addition and renovation in active use. The principal is Cleve Million. The school offers Project Lead The Way courses, an extensive Advanced Placement list and career and technical education.

Sources:

1. Northwest News, KPC Media, December 13, 2016 and February 27, 2018: the first class of 1969 at Huntertown and Superintendent Himsel's anniversary sequence for the building.
2. Carroll High School, History page, ch.nacs.k12.in.us, and Northwest Allen County Schools, Huntertown Elementary page: season and conference records, and the last Huntertown seniors of 1968.
3. The Charger Online, October 22, 2019 and February 2, 2024: class sizes, the 2009 fieldhouse and auditorium, and the 2023 expansion.
4. Northwest Allen County Schools, budget and facilities document, 2026: district enrollment and the two unit campus.
5. Indiana High School Athletic Association, Baseball and Cross Country Records Books: the 2010 and 2011 titles and the cross country titles and runner up finishes.
6. National Center for Education Statistics (180825001414): 2,623 students, 2024 to 2025.
7. Weigand Construction: the expansion scope and the 2021 athletic site work.