Original Research by School Decision on N O Nelson Elem School
N.O. Nelson Elementary serves early grades in Edwardsville, a county-seat city in southern Illinois that anchors the St. Louis metro area. The school enrolls students in pre-kindergarten through second grade in a building at West High Street.
The enrollment is small for its grade band, with a mostly white student body, alongside a meaningful share of Hispanic and multiracial students and smaller numbers of Black and Asian students. Free-or-reduced-price-lunch eligibility data was not available, nor were rates of special education or English learner services, so a parent would want to ask the school directly about the composition of those groups and what support looks like in practice.
The school sits in Edwardsville, a mixed residential-and-commercial place with a walkable historic downtown anchored by the Madison County Courthouse, Main Street retail and dining, and civic institutions like the Edwardsville Public Library and Arts Center. Single-family homes, many built in the 19th century, cluster a few blocks from downtown. The broader city is stitched together by an extensive network of paved bikeways—more than eighty-five miles of trails—connecting neighborhoods, schools, business districts, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and parks like Glik Park, City Park, and the forty-six-acre Watershed Nature Center.
The community is growing. Downtown infill projects like the Ink House, Urban Collective Hotel, and Station on Main mixed-use development are reshaping the core. At the I-55 and Governor's Parkway edge, commercial and residential projects including The Pointe and Park North are adding scale. A new student housing complex opened recently near SIUE. Housing values in the zip code are moderately above the Illinois state benchmark and below the national median. Rental costs sit in a range typical for communities at this distance from a major metro. Median household income locally aligns with national figures. The major employers anchoring the area include Amazon's North American Fulfillment operation at the Gateway Commerce Center, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Anderson Healthcare, U.S. Steel, and Prairie Farms Dairy, whose headquarters is in Edwardsville. Distribution, logistics, higher education, and healthcare shape the local economy.
Nelson is part of Edwardsville CUSD 7. The district recently completed a substantial modernization push: voters approved a bond referendum in April 2023—structured as a zero-tax-rate-change measure—that funded facility and security upgrades across all district schools. Lincoln Middle School underwent a major rebuild with new secured entry, gyms, commons, media center, and locker rooms. This facility work is ongoing and represents a visible commitment to learning environments without raising the property tax rate.
In March 2025, the school board voted to dismiss a group of non-tenured probationary teachers and not fill several retiring positions, citing financial stability. The district cited inflation and reduced state revenue as drivers. Parents should be aware that this staffing reduction may affect class sizes and teacher availability in the school year ahead.
No state assessment data was available for Nelson, which is typical for early-elementary schools in Illinois—kindergarten and first and second grade are not assessed under the state testing system. A parent should ask the school what local reading and math assessments it uses and what benchmarks or growth measures inform instruction in these foundational grades.
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