Mabel K. Holland Elementary School

Fort Wayne Community Schools, 7000 Red Haw Drive, Fort Wayne; prekindergarten through fifth grade; named for Mabel K. Holland, an educator of decades who retired as the district's director of elementary education in 1954; the building's year is an open item in the record

The Namesake: Mabel K. Holland's working life spans the whole modern history of Fort Wayne's schools. She was in the first class to graduate from Fort Wayne High School, the district records, and then she went to work for the schools she had just left. The 1923 city directory finds her on the teaching staff of the South Side Grade School on Calhoun Street. Twenty years on, the district's own directory of 1943 to 1947 lists her as Director of Elementary Instruction, living on Beechwood Drive, the administrator in charge of the city's elementary grades. She retired in 1954 as Director of Elementary Education, after decades in the system. When Fort Wayne built an elementary school on Red Haw Drive, on the city's north side, it put her name on it: the school is named in honor of Mabel K. Holland, an FWCS teacher and Director of Elementary Grades, in the district's own words.

The Missing Year: This page has to be honest about a hole. No district page, district history post, newspaper item or federal field found for this article states when Holland Elementary was built or opened. Public School Review's "Year Founded" field gives 1964, and a compiled list of Fort Wayne school openings gives the same year. Two compilations agreeing is stronger than one, but neither is a primary record, that aggregator field has proved unreliable on other Fort Wayne schools, and no document produced by the district or the federal government confirms the year, so it is not printed here as fact. What the record does hold is the school in full operation by the late nineteen eighties: the federal count begins with five hundred seventy two students in 1988. The district's facilities records or the school files at the Allen County Public Library are where the building's year will be found, and until one of them is read, the date stays open.

Enrollment: The federal arc describes a school that shrank for thirty years and then turned. The National Center for Education Statistics counted seven hundred sixty nine students at Holland in 1993, its peak, then watched the number fall through six hundred ten in 2002 to a low of four hundred five in 2018. Since then it has climbed back: five hundred thirty three students in 2025, taught by thirty nine and a half teachers, about thirteen students to a teacher. The children changed along the way. White students were eighty seven percent of Holland in 1988 and are forty seven percent in 2025, alongside twenty three percent Hispanic students and growing Black and Asian shares. Free or discounted lunch eligibility tells the economic half of the story: under ten percent in 1988, a peak of eighty percent in 2010, and sixty four percent in 2025.

Standing: Holland's state test record swung further than most schools ever swing. SchoolDigger, working from Indiana Department of Education data, ranked it 864th of 959 Indiana elementary schools in 2005, then climbed it year by year to 149th of 1,046 in 2016 and 183rd in 2019, marks that put a high poverty school among the state's stronger elementaries. The years since have given much of that back: the rank slid to 629th of 1,005 in 2025. The article prints the climb and the fall without inventing an explanation for either; the sources record the scores, not their causes.

Today: In 2026 Holland is an open, operating elementary school of about five hundred thirty students on Red Haw Drive, serving the neighborhoods of the city's north side. Its namesake supervised every elementary grade in Fort Wayne a lifetime ago; the school's own first chapter, the year its doors opened, is still waiting for a source.

Sources:

1. Fort Wayne Community Schools, Facebook and Twitter post, February 14, 2019, and Facebook post, October 22, 2020, collected in Allen County Genealogical Society, Elementary Schools in Allen County, Indiana, Allen INGenWeb, 2026: the school is named for Mabel K. Holland, who was in the first class to graduate from Fort Wayne High School and served as an educator for FWCS for decades, retiring as Director of Elementary Education in 1954; an FWCS teacher and Director of Elementary Grades; the school located on Red Haw Drive.
2. R.L. Polk and Co., Fort Wayne, Indiana city directory, 1923: Mabel K. Holland on the teaching staff of the South Side Grade School, 3601 Calhoun Street.
3. Fort Wayne Community Schools, Directory of Fort Wayne public schools and public library, 1943 to 1947, full text at archive.org: Mabel K. Holland, 527 Beechwood Drive, Director of Elementary Instruction.
4. National Center for Education Statistics, Mabel K Holland Elementary School (180363000543), as republished by SchoolDigger: enrollment of 572 in 1988, peak 769 in 1993, 610 in 2002, low 405 in 2018 and 533 in 2025, 39.5 teachers, the 1988 and 2025 compositions, and free or discounted lunch eligibility of 9.6 percent in 1988, 80.3 percent in 2010 and 64.4 percent in 2025.
5. SchoolDigger, Mabel K Holland Elementary School, 2026, from Indiana Department of Education data: state ranks of 864th of 959 in 2005, 149th of 1,046 in 2016, 183rd of 1,031 in 2019 and 629th of 1,005 in 2025, and average spending of $12,906 per student.
6. Public School Review, Mabel K Holland Elementary School profile, 2026: the "Year Founded" field gives 1964; printed here as an unverified aggregator claim only, unconfirmed by any district or federal source.
7. "History of Public Schools in Fort Wayne," compiled list of Fort Wayne school openings at fortwaynesouthside.com, read 2026: the list gives 1964 for the school (under its spelling, Mable K. Holland); a second compilation agreeing with the aggregator's year, still not a primary record.