Covington Elementary School

Southwest Allen County Schools, 2430 West Hamilton Road South, Fort Wayne; kindergarten through fifth grade; the Coyotes; the largest elementary in this set of six, and the one the published record meets latest

The Name: Covington Road is one of the southwest county's through roads, and the school stands in its corridor, at Hamilton Road South. That is the whole of what the record says about the name. No district source consulted documents when the school was named, or for what, and the city of Covington in Fountain County has nothing to do with it. The name is printed as the district prints it, with its origin standing open.

The Founding: The published record does not say when Covington Elementary opened. The school's own site and the district's pages give no opening year, no dedication and no anniversary, and the searches run for this entry found none. What can be dated is the paper trail: the school's federal record, kept by the National Center for Education Statistics, begins in 2004. The entry is keyed to that year as the earliest documented evidence of the school in operation, a sorting key and not a founding date, and the article claims no more for it than that. A school this size does not appear from nowhere; its first years simply went unrecorded in the sources a public search can reach, and the gap is printed rather than filled.

The Principal: The district's own pages disagreed about who led the school when they were read in the fall of 2026, and the disagreement is printed as it stands. The district's online directory still carried Meghan Skelton as principal, with Jennifer Mandelbaum as her assistant. But the school board's minutes of June 16, 2026 welcomed Elizabeth Kitchen as the school's new principal, and the school's own newsletter that August carried a principal's message from Mrs. Kitchen under the heading "Covington Coyotes: One Pack, One Purpose." The board's action and the school's own paper are the later and stronger evidence, and this entry names Kitchen on them, with the directory's older listing standing beside it unreconciled. The same June meeting did the same work across the district, moving Lafayette Meadows' assistant principal, Jim Kowalski, up to the principal's chair at Aboite Elementary.

The Federal Record: In 2025 the federal record counts seven hundred forty six students at Covington, the largest enrollment of the six elementary schools in this set, and up from the seven hundred seventy seven counted for 2023 to 2024 in the same federal series as republished by NeighborhoodScout, a school holding in the mid seven hundreds. Minority students were forty three percent of the school, the majority of them Black students, the most diverse student body among the district's elementaries in this record. Its attendance zone is computed at about nine square miles of the county's southwest, a suburban catchment rather than a farm one. Its students are about a tenth of the whole district: the federal figures count some seven thousand five hundred students across all of Southwest Allen County's schools.

Today: Covington is where the district tried out its youngest program. The Journal Gazette reported that Southwest Allen County Schools piloted Spartan Kids Pre K at Covington Elementary with twenty two children, and then expanded it to nearly one hundred children across four sites, Covington among them. The school's own students are the Coyotes. In 2026 its playground was under renovation in the same district program that rebuilt the playgrounds at Aboite and Haverhill. A school the record meets only in 2004 is, by the district's own choices, the place it sends its newest ideas first.

Sources:

1. Southwest Allen County Schools, board minutes, June 16, 2026: Elizabeth Kitchen welcomed as the new principal of Covington Elementary School; the same meeting named Jim Kowalski principal of Aboite Elementary.
2. Covington Elementary School, school newsletter, August 2026: "Covington Coyotes: One Pack, One Purpose"; the principal's message from Mrs. Kitchen.
3. Southwest Allen County Schools, online directory, 2026: Meghan Skelton listed as principal and Jennifer Mandelbaum as assistant principal of Covington Elementary School, the listing the board's June 2026 action supersedes.
4. National Center for Education Statistics, Covington Elementary School (school ID 180003001810), as republished by Public School Review: the federal series beginning in 2004; 746 students in 2025; minority enrollment 43 percent; the attendance zone of about 9 square miles; the district's total of some 7,500 students across its schools; and as republished by NeighborhoodScout, 777 students in 2023 to 2024.
5. The Journal Gazette, via mynewsonthego.com, 2026: Spartan Kids Pre K piloted at Covington Elementary with 22 students, expanding to nearly 100 children across four sites.
6. Southwest Allen County Schools, back to school message, August 2026: playground renovations under way at Covington.