The top reported proficiency rate is 51% in Math. The lowest is 34% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Elsie Wadsworth Elementary School
Elsie Wadsworth Elementary School is a regular public school in Griffith, Indiana, serving children from pre-kindergarten through second grade. It is one of several elementary campuses within Griffith Public Schools, a small district that operates a single secondary building—Griffith Jr/Sr High School—which has been the subject of a recent renovation bond proposal funded through the district’s existing tax rate. For families entering the school system, Wadsworth is the starting point; after second grade, students would move to other elementary buildings within the district and eventually to the middle and high school.
Griffith itself is a predominantly residential town in Lake County, roughly a half-hour drive from downtown Chicago. Once planned as an industrial suburb and a historic railroad junction, the town today features a downtown corridor along Broad Street with stores, a bike trail, and a mix of small businesses. The civic core centers on the town hall and historical society, while schools are spread across residential neighborhoods. The population has seen a modest decline over recent years, but home values have risen and now sit near the state median. Rents are relatively affordable compared to local incomes, and most residents commute outside town for work. No major new housing developments have been identified locally, so the housing market appears stable for a suburban, owner-occupied community.
Wadsworth enrolls roughly a few hundred students. The student body is notably diverse: no single racial or ethnic group holds a majority. About a third of students are white, another third are Hispanic, a quarter are Black, and a small share identify as two or more races. A substantial portion of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, indicating that economic diversity is present. The school does not serve grades in which state testing is currently administered, so there are no recent academic proficiency results for its students. The most recent state assessment data available comes from several years ago, when the school may have included higher grade levels; those older results, from a year when the school tested more than a hundred students, showed math proficiency rates above half, while English/language arts, science, and social studies proficiency rates were around a third. Compared to other schools in Lake County for which such data is available, Wadsworth’s combined proficiency index sits above the midpoint of the county’s districts. However, because the school now ends at second grade, those results do not reflect the current student population, and families should be aware that state testing for third grade and above would occur at other schools in the district.
No specific academic programs or specialized offerings are listed for Wadsworth. Information on discipline, staffing ratios, chronic absenteeism, and course access is also absent from the available data. The school does not report special education or English learner counts, though the diversity of the student body suggests that support for varying language and learning needs may be an important consideration for families to discuss directly with the school.
For parents evaluating this school, the primary academic pathway is clear: Wadsworth provides the earliest years of elementary education in a small-town, single-district setting. The peer environment is diverse and mixed-income, which many families value. The housing market in Griffith is comparatively moderate for the region, with no signs of rapid growth or decline. The school itself offers pre-kindergarten, which can be a key factor for working families seeking early childhood options. Because the school ends at second grade, families will need to plan for the transition to later elementary grades and ultimately to a combined junior-senior high school that is undergoing facility upgrades. Overall, Elsie Wadsworth fits families looking for a community-anchored early elementary school in a stable, residential suburb with access to Chicago, provided they are comfortable with the limited information available on the school’s current academic programming and student support services.
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