Haverhill Elementary School

Southwest Allen County Schools, 4725 Weatherside Run, Fort Wayne; kindergarten through fifth grade; the Hawks; a quiet school in the record, with one honor at the top of the state's list

The Name: Haverhill is a city in Massachusetts, and it is also the name of this elementary school on Weatherside Run, in a subdivision part of the city's southwest. Whether the school took the name from the street pattern of its neighborhood, from a developer's map or from the Massachusetts city, no source consulted says. The name is a common one for American schools, which makes this one's own paper trail harder to find, not easier: searches for it fill with other Haverhills in other states. This entry prints the name as the district prints it and asserts no namesake, because none is documented.

The Founding: No source consulted states when Haverhill Elementary opened. The district publishes no history of the building, and no opening, dedication or anniversary account was found. The federal record, kept by the National Center for Education Statistics, meets the school in 1987, the first year of its series, and this entry is keyed to that year as earliest documented evidence, a sorting key and not a founding date. The school was plainly standing and teaching before its paper trail begins; how long before, the record does not say.

The Honor: The school's best documented distinction belongs to one of its teachers. The Indiana Department of Education's list of past Teachers of the Year names Jean Russell of Haverhill Elementary as Indiana Teacher of the Year for 2016, the state's teacher of the year, chosen from every school in Indiana. The entry prints the honor on the Department's own list. A school of about four hundred children in a Fort Wayne subdivision had, that year, the state's teacher of the year in one of its classrooms, and that fact is the school's headline in the public record.

The Federal Record: In 2025 the federal record counts three hundred ninety six students at Haverhill, taught by twenty nine teachers at about fourteen students to a teacher, the smallest enrollment of the six elementary schools in this set. Minority students were twenty seven percent of the school. Its attendance zone is computed at about six point four square miles. The state's own count runs a little earlier and a little higher: the Indiana Department of Education's Title I export of March 2, 2023 counted four hundred seventy one students enrolled at Haverhill, with a poverty rate of sixteen point one three six percent. The two counts are printed with their years attached; they are not the same year and are not merged.

Standing: Public School Review's overall testing rank places Haverhill six hundred thirty second of one thousand seven hundred forty three Indiana schools in 2023, with both its math proficiency and its reading proficiency in the state's top fifth. It is a steady, mid sized suburban school in the numbers, neither the district's largest nor its most decorated, the Jean Russell year apart.

Today: The school's students are the Haverhill Hawks; its newsletter, the HES Soaring Express, was urging families in January 2026 to support our Hawks and selling Haverhill Hawk gear. The school is one of the four sites of the district's Spartan Kids Pre K program, the district's preschool for its youngest children. In 2026 its playground was under renovation, in the same district program that rebuilt the elementary playgrounds at Aboite and Covington that year. No district source consulted names its current principal, and this entry names none rather than repeat a commercial listing that belongs to an earlier decade of the district's leadership.

Sources:

1. Indiana Department of Education, past Teachers of the Year list: Jean Russell of Haverhill Elementary, Indiana Teacher of the Year for 2016.
2. National Center for Education Statistics, Haverhill Elementary School (school ID 180003002186), as republished by Public School Review: the federal series beginning in 1987; 396 students and 29 teachers in 2025, at about 14 students to a teacher; minority enrollment 27 percent; the attendance zone of about 6.4 square miles; overall testing rank 632nd of 1,743 Indiana schools in 2023, with math and reading proficiency in the state's top fifth.
3. Indiana Department of Education, Title I eligible schools export, printed March 2, 2023: Haverhill Elementary, 471 total enrolled, poverty 16.136 percent.
4. Haverhill Elementary School, HES Soaring Express newsletter, January 2026: the Hawks and Haverhill Hawk gear.
5. The Journal Gazette, via mynewsonthego.com, 2026: Spartan Kids Pre K at four sites, Haverhill Elementary among them.
6. Southwest Allen County Schools, back to school message, August 2026: playground renovations under way at Haverhill.