Paul Harding Junior High School

East Allen County Schools, 6501 Wayne Trace, Fort Wayne; grades seven and eight; created in 2012 in the 1973 Paul Harding plant, which it shares with East Allen University

The school: Paul Harding Junior High School is East Allen County Schools' junior high for the southeast side of Fort Wayne, teaching grades seven and eight at 6501 Wayne Trace. It carries Indiana school number 0294 in the Indiana Department of Education's list of public school numbers; one district improvement plan copy heads the school 0249, and this entry follows the state list. Its teams are the Hawks and its colors are white, green, and gold, recorded for the junior high itself in its federal profile: the name and colors of the high school that stood in the same building before it, carried on by the younger school. It shares its plant with East Allen University, the district's school of grades nine through twelve, and the two are separate schools, with separate staffs and separate entries in this record, under one roof.

The plant and the name: The building is older than the school by two generations of students. East Allen's facilities accounting dates the plant's original construction to 1973, built for Paul Harding High School, and the district's facilities list carries the building today under the joint name Paul Harding Junior High and East Allen University. The name honors Paul Harding, superintendent of New Haven's schools from 1954 to 1964 and the first superintendent of the consolidated East Allen County Schools, from 1964 to 1968. The high school that bore his name from 1973 to 2011 has its own entry in this record; this entry is the junior high's.

How the junior high came to be: The junior high is a child of the district's 2010 redesign of its southeast side. Superintendent Karyle Green presented the redesign on September 21, 2010, and the school board approved it on October 5, 2010, by six votes to one. Paul Harding High School held its last day on June 10, 2011, and closed. Through the remodeling year that followed, the building held seventh and eighth graders, and what reopened in August 2012 was split in two: Paul Harding Junior High School for grades seven and eight, and East Allen University for grades nine through twelve.

The federal record: The school enters the federal school counts in 2012 with 259 students and grows through the decade: 289 students in 2015, 360 in 2018, 417 in 2020, and 440 in 2022, standing at 422 students with 34 teachers in 2025, a ratio of twelve students to a teacher. The counts show a school whose population turned over as southeast Fort Wayne changed around it. In 2012 its enrollment was 50 percent Black, 29 percent Asian, 10 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent White; by 2025 it was 50 percent Asian, 23 percent Black, 18 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent White. Three quarters of its students were eligible for free lunch in 2025. Its recorded chronic absenteeism stood at 29.9 percent in 2023, and the state test figures in its federal profile put proficiency at 16 percent in mathematics and 22 percent in reading.

People: The junior high's founding principal was Teresa Gremaux, who led it for its first three years and is credited, in the account of her next appointment, with turning the school from an F to a B before she left in 2015 to become superintendent of North White schools. Danielle L. Newman heads the school in its improvement plans of 2018 and 2019 and of 2020, and in board minutes of August 2022. Charles Washington is named in the school's leadership in board minutes of June 2024, which also record Jake Hyndman, formerly an assistant principal and athletic director shared by the junior high and East Allen University, becoming principal of Prince Chapman Academy. One caution belongs on this record: reference pages for the closed high school carry Danielle Newman's name as that school's principal. She is the junior high's principal, and her name belongs to this entry. No principal for the years 2015 to 2018 was named in the sources reached, and the line is printed with its gap.

The plant in 2026: The shared building is being rebuilt around its two schools. On June 23, 2025, the East Allen board awarded the Paul Harding Junior High School and East Allen University Project, Phase 1, by a unanimous vote, and the district held a groundbreaking ceremony at the building on June 26, 2025. As the district's record describes the project, it adds two-story additions for each school, renovates the building's north half, and plans the demolition of its south half: the 1973 plant remade, for the second time, around the schools inside it.

Sources:

1. Public School Review, Paul Harding Jr High School profile (National Center for Education Statistics and Indiana Department of Education data): address, telephone, grade span, the enrollment series 2012 to 2025, composition, free lunch eligibility, absenteeism, proficiency, mascot and colors, https://www.publicschoolreview.com/paul-harding-jr-high-school-profile
2. East Allen County Schools, board hearing and facility plan document, July 9, 2024: plant listed as Paul Harding Junior High/East Allen University, original construction 1973, https://www.eacs.k12.in.us/cms/lib/IN01910583/Centricity/Domain/4/July%209%20hearing%20document.pdf
3. Allen County Genealogical Society of Indiana, schools of Allen County page: the district facilities dating transcribed from the Journal Gazette's East Allen facilities reporting
4. East Allen University article, Moosed History schools record (wave 4): the 2010 redesign, the October 5, 2010 approval, the high school's last day on June 10, 2011, and the August 2012 reopening in two parts
5. Wikipedia, East Allen University: the split of the reopened building and the newly created Paul Harding Junior High School, grades seven and eight
6. Monticello Herald Journal, 2015, via newsbug.info: Teresa Gremaux's three years as principal of Paul Harding Junior High School and the school's rise from an F to a B, https://www.newsbug.info/monticello_herald_journal/news/local/gremaux-to-be-new-superintendent-of-north-white/article_a6a6e3e3-799c-53e9-809e-7e6eb08f5819.html
7. Paul Harding Junior High School, school improvement plans, 2018-19 and 2020 (school number 0249): Danielle L. Newman, principal; and Indiana Department of Education, List of Public School Numbers: corporation 0255, East Allen County Schools, school 0294, Paul Harding Jr High School
8. East Allen County Schools, Board of School Trustees minutes, August 16, 2022; June 4, 2024; and June 23, 2025: Newman's and Washington's leadership, Hyndman's move to Prince Chapman Academy, and the Phase 1 project award
9. East Allen County Schools, district news, June 2025: groundbreaking ceremony at Paul Harding Junior High School and East Allen University, June 26, 2025