Whispering Meadows Elementary School

Southwest Allen County Schools, 415 Mission Hill Drive, Fort Wayne; prekindergarten through fifth grade; the district's school of two name forms, plural on its own door and singular in the federal record

The Name: The school spells its own name with an s: Whispering Meadows Elementary School, on its site and in its letterhead. The federal record spells it without one: Whispering Meadow Elementary School, and the national data cannot be searched for this school under the name its own district uses. This entry follows the district's form, as this history follows each district's own name for its schools, and prints the federal form here so the school can be found either way. Why the name was chosen, no source consulted says. Whispering Meadow is a name a developer gives a subdivision as readily as a board gives a school, and Mission Hill Drive is a subdivision street; but readiness is not evidence, and the naming stands undocumented.

The Founding: No source consulted states when the school 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 1994, 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. Even the school's mascot appears in no source consulted, a gap this entry leaves open rather than filling from the conventions of school names.

The Federal Record: In 2025 the federal record counts five hundred thirty five students at Whispering Meadow, taught by thirty six teachers at about fifteen students to a teacher, the count relatively flat across five school years. Minority students were thirty five percent of the school. Twenty seven percent of its students qualified for free lunch and four percent for reduced price lunch. Its attendance zone is computed at about three point six square miles, the smallest of the six elementary schools in this set: a compact neighborhood catchment on Mission Hill, where most families live within a short drive of the door.

The State Count: Indiana's own record runs close behind the federal one and counts a few more children. The Indiana Department of Education's Title I export of March 2, 2023 lists Whispering Meadow Elementary School, school number 0046 in its corporation, spanning prekindergarten through fifth grade, with five hundred seventy seven students enrolled in all, five hundred forty eight of them public school students and twenty nine nonpublic, and a poverty rate of twenty three point nine one seven percent. The state counts the nonpublic children the school serves alongside its own; the federal count does not, and the two figures are printed with their years and their definitions, not merged.

Standing: Public School Review's overall testing rank places the school eight hundred forty sixth of one thousand seven hundred forty three Indiana schools, at the middle of the state. It is, in the rankings as in its enrollment, the steady middle of this district's six elementary schools: no headline rank, no failing one.

Today: Principal Nicole Veit leads the school in the district's current papers; she presented its board report, pairing the school with the district's strategic plan, on May 5, 2026. The district's own pages carry the assistant principal's chair under two names, Kayla Williams in the district directory and Lindsay Underwood in a board packet of May 2026, and they are printed here as they stand, unreconciled. The school is one of the four sites of the district's Spartan Kids Pre K program. A school the record treats this quietly still teaches more than five hundred children a year on Mission Hill, under a name even the record cannot spell one way.

Sources:

1. Whispering Meadows Elementary School, school site, 2026: the district's plural name form for the school.
2. National Center for Education Statistics, Whispering Meadow Elementary School (school ID 180003000083, per the U.S. Department of Education's EdDataExpress), as republished by Public School Review: the federal series beginning in 1994; 535 students and 36 teachers in 2025, at about 15 students to a teacher; minority enrollment 35 percent; free lunch eligibility 27 percent and reduced price 4 percent; the attendance zone of about 3.6 square miles; overall testing rank 846th of 1,743 Indiana schools.
3. Indiana Department of Education, Title I eligible schools export, printed March 2, 2023: Whispering Meadow Elementary Sch, school 0046, span prekindergarten to 05, 577 total enrolled (548 public and 29 nonpublic), poverty 23.917 percent.
4. Southwest Allen County Schools, district directory, 2026, and board packets of April and May 2026: the address at 415 Mission Hill Drive, Fort Wayne, IN 46804; Principal Nicole Veit, and her board report of May 5, 2026; the assistant principal's chair named for Kayla Williams in the directory and for Lindsay Underwood in the May 2026 packet.
5. The Journal Gazette, via mynewsonthego.com, 2026: Spartan Kids Pre K at four sites, Whispering Meadows among them.