Fred H. Croninger Elementary School

Fort Wayne Community Schools, 6700 Trier Road, Fort Wayne; kindergarten through fifth grade; the Crusaders; a communications magnet school, one of the district's seven magnets; dedicated in November 1966 with its namesake present

The Namesake: Fred Croninger ran Central High School for twenty six years, as its principal from 1921 to 1947, and Fort Wayne named a school for him while he was alive to see it. "He was present when the school was dedicated in his name in November 1966," the district wrote in January 2024. Croninger's name belongs to a small set: the city named schools for a run of Central's principals, among them Chester Lane, Louis Ward and J. Wilbur Haley, the genealogical society notes, men whose high school downtown was the whole of the system when they led it. One caution on the sources themselves: the society's elementary schools page files this school under a heading spelled "Chroninger." The district post inside the section, the school's own site and the federal record all spell it Croninger, and so does this page.

The Magnet: Croninger taught its neighborhood for two decades before it changed character. In the fall of 1988 the communication magnet program started, the district records, built around communication in its forms and housing its own television studio. The school still works that way. Its students take weekly Spanish, and in the studio they run professional grade cameras, teleprompters, audio equipment and editing tools to produce the school's daily newscast, the school's own account of the program says. As a magnet, Croninger draws from across the district rather than from the blocks around Trier Road, and the federal counts show the draw changing the school in a single year. In 1988 the National Center for Education Statistics counted five hundred forty one students, thirty four of them Black. In 1989, the magnet's first year, it counted five hundred ninety seven, one hundred thirteen of them Black.

Enrollment: Croninger has been a full school for its whole federal record. It counted five hundred fourteen students in 1987, peaked at six hundred forty six in 2019, and holds six hundred nineteen in 2024 to 2025, taught by thirty five teachers, about eighteen students to a teacher, the highest ratio among the district's elementary schools. The composition has broadened slowly: White students were ninety one percent of the school in 1988 and are sixty one percent in 2025, alongside fifteen percent Black, twelve percent of two or more races, ten percent Hispanic and three percent Asian students. One figure sets Croninger apart from every other Fort Wayne elementary. In 1988 just 1.3 percent of its students qualified for free or discounted lunch. In 2025 the figure is thirty three percent, still the lowest in the district.

Standing: The magnet's results are the district's outlier. SchoolDigger, working from state test data, ranks Croninger fourth among one thousand five elementary schools in Indiana in 2025 and first among the district's ranked elementary schools. In 2022 the United States Department of Education named it a National Blue Ribbon School, one of two hundred ninety seven schools in the country that year, and the school marked the award with a ribbon cutting at the Trier Road building on September 26, 2022. Its own site adds that U.S. News placed it thirteenth among Indiana elementary schools, and that its third graders passed the state reading assessment at a rate of one hundred percent in both 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026. Superintendent Thomas Fowler-Finn, writing about student mobility in 1998 to 1999, gave Croninger a stability rate of 92.8 percent, families staying put in a district where other schools churned.

Today: In 2026 Croninger is an open, operating magnet elementary school of about six hundred twenty students on Trier Road, the Crusaders, sixty years past the November morning its namesake stood in the new building while the district dedicated it to him. The newscast still goes out from the studio the magnet built in 1988, now produced by children who were not born when the program was already a generation old.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne Community Schools, Facebook post, January 18, 2024, collected in Allen County Genealogical Society, Elementary Schools in Allen County, Indiana, Allen INGenWeb, 2026: named for Fred Croninger, principal of Central High School from 1921 to 1947; he was present when the school was dedicated in his name in November 1966; the communication magnet program started in the fall of 1988, including its own television studio.
2. Allen County Genealogical Society, High Schools in Allen County, Indiana, Allen INGenWeb, 2026: schools named for Central High School principals, including Fred Croninger, Chester Lane, Louis Ward and J. Wilbur Haley.
3. National Center for Education Statistics, Fred H Croninger Elementary School (180363000527), as republished by Public School Review and SchoolDigger: enrollment of 514 in 1987, 541 in 1988 with 34 Black students, 597 in 1989 with 113 Black students, peak 646 in 2019, 619 students in 2024 to 2025, thirty five teachers, the composition in 1988 and 2025, and free or discounted lunch eligibility of 1.3 percent in 1988 and 33.3 percent in 2025.
4. Indiana Department of Education, National Blue Ribbon Schools list, in.gov, 2026: Fred H. Croninger Elementary School, Fort Wayne Community Schools, in the 2022 roster. US 93.3, September 26, 2022: one of 297 schools named nationally, with a ribbon cutting at the school on September 26, 2022.
5. SchoolDigger, Fred H Croninger Elementary School, 2026: ranked fourth of 1,005 Indiana elementary schools in 2025 and first among the district's ranked elementary schools; the highest student teacher ratio and the lowest lunch eligibility and per pupil spending among the district's elementary schools.
6. Croninger Elementary School, About Us page, croninger.fortwayneschools.org, 2026: Home of the Crusaders; weekly Spanish instruction; the communication studio, its cameras, teleprompters and daily newscast; the U.S. News ranking of thirteenth in Indiana; the 100 percent IREAD-3 passing rates in 2024 to 2025 and 2025 to 2026.
7. Thomas Fowler-Finn, "Student Stability vs. Mobility," School Administrator, American Association of School Administrators: Croninger, a magnet school drawing students from across the district, with a mobility rate of 16.3 percent and a stability rate of 92.8 percent in 1998 to 1999.