Merle J. Abbett Elementary School

Fort Wayne Community Schools, 4325 Smith Street, Fort Wayne; prekindergarten through fifth grade; the Wolves; dedicated November 5, 1950, the first school built in the city after World War II

The Namesake: Abbett is one of the rare Fort Wayne schools whose naming the record states outright. The school was named for Merle J. Abbett, who was superintendent of Fort Wayne Community Schools from 1932 to 1952, the Allen County Genealogical Society's school pages say. The district's own directory for 1948 to 1949 carries the heading "Merle J. Abbett, Superintendent of Schools," so the sequence is plain: the district built a school, named it for the superintendent then in office, and dedicated it while he still held the job, two years before his twenty year superintendency ended. Schools are more often named for the dead or the retired. Abbett Elementary was named for the man who ran the system, by the system he ran, and the building has carried his full name, initials and all, ever since.

Dedication: The school was dedicated on November 5, 1950, and the genealogical society preserves the fact that made it a civic occasion: Abbett was the first school built in the city after World War II. Fort Wayne had gone through the war years and the first postwar years adding children faster than classrooms, and the Smith Street building was the first answer the district built. A yearbook album from 1967, twenty one photographs, survives on the society's pages from the building's second decade.

The Building: The district still leans on the school. "Abbett Elementary has been an anchor in its neighborhood for more than 60 years and is still going strong," the district wrote in July 2022, announcing in the same post that new classrooms would be added to the building to alleviate overcrowding. Whether those classrooms have been built is not documented in the sources searched for this page. The school's attendance area is one of the smallest in the district, about seven tenths of a square mile of the near southeast side, which makes the crowding a matter of density, not distance: Abbett's children mostly live within a short walk of Smith Street.

Enrollment: The National Center for Education Statistics counted four hundred thirty one students at Abbett in 1987 and four hundred sixty six in 1988. The school thinned to two hundred seventy in 2009, then climbed to a peak of five hundred twenty four in 2021, the highest count in its federal record, before settling to four hundred sixty seven in 2024 to 2025, down ten percent across five years, taught by thirty nine teachers, about twelve students to a teacher. The student body's makeup has turned over completely within the record. In 1988 Black students were fifty one percent of the school and Hispanic students seven percent. In 2025 Hispanic students are forty five percent, Black students thirty one percent, Asian students twelve percent, and White students four percent. Between eighty one and eighty seven percent of Abbett's students have qualified for free or reduced price lunch in recent years.

Feeders: Abbett's students go on to Lane Middle School and then to South Side High School, the chain SchoolDigger's feeder records give for the school.

Today: In 2026 Abbett is an open, operating elementary school of about four hundred seventy students on Smith Street, the Wolves, under a motto that fits a school named for a superintendent and anchored in one neighborhood: "United by community. Driven by excellence." Seventy six years after its dedication, it remains what it was built to be, the first postwar school in Fort Wayne, still drawing from the blocks around it.

Sources:

1. Allen County Genealogical Society, Elementary Schools in Allen County, Indiana, Allen INGenWeb, 2026: named for Merle J. Abbett, superintendent from 1932 to 1952; dedicated November 5, 1950; the first school built in the city after World War II; the 1967 yearbook album.
2. Fort Wayne public schools, Directory of Fort Wayne public schools and public library, 1948-1949, full text at the Internet Archive: Merle J. Abbett listed as Superintendent of Schools.
3. Fort Wayne Community Schools, Facebook post, July 21, 2022, collected in Allen County Genealogical Society, Elementary Schools in Allen County, Indiana: Abbett an anchor in its neighborhood for more than 60 years, with new classrooms to be added to alleviate overcrowding.
4. National Center for Education Statistics, Merle J. Abbett Elementary School (180363000547), as republished by Public School Review and SchoolDigger: enrollment of 431 in 1987, trough 270 in 2009, peak 524 in 2021, 467 students in 2024 to 2025, thirty nine teachers, the attendance area of about 0.7 square miles, the racial composition in 1988 and 2025, and free and reduced lunch eligibility between 81 and 87 percent.
5. SchoolDigger, Merle J. Abbett Elementary School, 2026: Lane Middle School and South Side High School as the school's destinations.
6. Abbett Elementary School, school site, abbett.fortwayneschools.org, 2026: Home of the Wolves, and the motto "United by community. Driven by excellence."