Hickory Center Elementary School

Northwest Allen County Schools, 3606 Baird Road, Fort Wayne; prekindergarten through fifth grade; the Huskies; opened in 1998, the oldest of the district's modern elementaries

The Opening: Hickory Center's founding rests on the same sentence that dates its younger neighbor. In November 2015 KPC News profiled Karin Huttsell, a Northwest Allen County teacher retiring after a career spent following new buildings: she transferred to Hickory Center Elementary when it opened in 1998, taught there through 2008, and then moved on to Eel River Elementary at its opening in 2009. A commercial school directory's founding field gives 1998 as well, and the federal enrollment series begins with the 1998 to 1999 school year and runs twenty seven years to the present, three independent tellings in agreement. No dedication account, architect or contractor for the building appears in any source consulted, and the reason for the name Hickory Center is not explained in any of them; what the record fixes is the year, and the year is solid. The school's parent teacher organization was formal within two years of the opening: the Hickory Center PTO holds federal tax exempt status dating to December 2000.

The Federal Record: In 2025 the National Center for Education Statistics counts four hundred fifty three students at Hickory Center, at thirteen students to a teacher, the tightest ratio in this wave's set. Minority students were twenty six percent of the school, the majority of them Hispanic and Asian students. Its overall testing stands in the top thirty percent of Indiana schools, with math proficiency of fifty nine percent and reading proficiency of forty nine percent, each in the top twenty percent statewide. SchoolDigger's telling of the same federal record counts four hundred forty three students and ranks the school three hundred fiftieth of one thousand five Indiana elementary schools in 2025, better than sixty five point two percent of them and seventh among the district's eight elementaries, with free and discounted lunch at twenty six point four percent and per pupil spending of ten thousand seven hundred ten dollars, the third highest in the district; the two counts are printed with their sources and not merged. Enrollment is up twenty one percent over five school years, against the district's general pattern of new buildings relieving old ones: Hickory Center, the oldest of the modern elementaries, is growing again. Its attendance zone is computed at about two point two square miles, the tightest in this wave's set, a walkable school for the subdivisions around Baird Road. Its students go on to Carroll Middle School and Carroll High School. A decade after it opened, the state's nutrition program counted seven hundred seventy one children at the Hickory Center site in October 2007, the building then teaching well beyond its present size.

The School's Voice: The school speaks through its newsletter, Hickory Center Paw Prints, issued from the district's own file servers in September and November 2025: a message from the principal, the calendar of conferences and popcorn days, and the monthly Husky Huddle, the assembly where the school celebrates its "lifeline" character leaders for the month. The huddle and the newsletter's name together give the mascot its documentary footing: the Huskies, whose paw prints title the paper and whose name the school also runs with, in the Husky Hustle cross country meet listed in the same pages. The district's NACS News of February 2026 gives the school its turn for the annual PTO sponsored Glow Dance, the parent organization's signature night in a year of movie nights and fall carnivals.

Today:The building is still being worked on: the district's capital projects plan adopted in October 2025, the spending plan Indiana law requires for 2026 to 2028, carries a restroom partition upgrade at Hickory Center priced at twenty five thousand dollars and scheduled for the summer of 2026. Twenty eight years after it opened as the district's answer to growth on Baird Road, the school is neither the newest nor the largest of the eight elementaries, but it holds the pair of distinctions this record documents: the lowest student teacher ratio in this wave's schools, and a founding year proved by the teacher who walked in when the doors first opened.

Sources:

1. KPC News, November 10, 2015: Karin Huttsell transferred to Hickory Center Elementary when it opened in 1998, taught there through 2008, and moved to Eel River Elementary at its 2009 opening.
2. National Center for Education Statistics, Hickory Center Elementary School (school ID 180825000937), as republished by Public School Review: 453 students in 2025; ratio 13 to 1; minority enrollment 26 percent; overall testing in the top 30 percent of Indiana schools, math proficiency 59 percent and reading 49 percent; enrollment up 21 percent over five school years; the series from 1999; the attendance zone of about 2.2 square miles; and by SchoolDigger: 443 students, rank 350th of 1,005 Indiana elementary schools in 2025, seventh among the district's eight, free and discounted lunch 26.4 percent, per pupil spending $10,710, and the Carroll Middle and Carroll High School feeders.
3. Hickory Center Paw Prints, the school's newsletter, September and November 2025, district hosted: the message from the principal, the Husky Huddle and the lifeline leaders, the Husky Hustle, and the PTO calendar; and Northwest Allen County Schools, NACS News, February 2026: the annual PTO sponsored Glow Dance.
4. Northwest Allen County Schools, About Us directory, read November 11, 2026: Hickory Center paired with Roanne Marlow and phone 260-637-3758; an older district directory carried by younity.in names Marlow as well, with the school's former phone number, recorded as stale.
5. Northwest Allen County Schools, Capital Projects Plan 2026 to 2028, under Indiana Code 20-40-18-6, adopted October 6, 2025: a restroom partition upgrade at Hickory Center, $25,000, scheduled May 1 to August 1, 2026.
6. Indiana Department of Education, nutrition eligibility listing, October 2007: the Hickory Center site with 771 children eligible; and the federal exempt organizations record, via taxexemptworld: the Hickory Center PTO's exempt status dating to December 2000.