The top reported proficiency rate is 42% in Science. The lowest is 33% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on O J Neighbours Elementary School
O J Neighbours Elementary School serves Wabash, Indiana, the county seat of Wabash County, as one of the elementary schools in the Wabash City Schools district. The school serves students from prekindergarten through fourth grade. Enrollment is in the low hundreds, and the student population is predominantly white, with a small but present share of Hispanic students and a roughly comparable share of students identifying as two or more races. Black, Asian, and American Indian or Alaska Native students each make up a very small fraction of the student body. A substantial share of students come from households with low enough incomes that they qualify for free or reduced-price meals.
The grades this school serves, prekindergarten through fourth, are the very early years, and parents coming to this school should understand that the academic measures available are specific to grade levels that are tested. State testing in Indiana begins in third grade, so only a portion of the school’s students sit for the ILEARN assessments in math, English language arts, and science. The most recent available testing results show that slightly less than a third of students were proficient in math, and a bit more than a third were proficient in English language arts. In science, the share of students reaching the proficient level stood just above two-fifths. By these results, overall proficiency across the tested grades and subjects placed this school a step behind the midpoint when compared with other schools across the school districts in Wabash County. A parent considering the school may want to ask the school directly about the instructional support and strategies in place to bring these numbers up.
The school is a regular public school that is not a charter or a magnet. There is no reported data on the percentage of students receiving special education services or English learner support. A parent whose child needs or may qualify for those supports should ask the school for specifics. No data was available on chronic absenteeism or disciplinary rates, leaving those parts of the school environment unclear from the numbers alone. The absence of that data could simply reflect the grade band.
The city of Wabash itself is a small manufacturing and commercial center that has seen a modest population decline in recent years. The median home value in the surrounding area is well below the national figure, and the housing market has been relatively affordable by national standards. The city has a compact downtown centered on the Wabash County Courthouse and a noted history as the first electrically lighted city in the world. It has seen some degree of downtown revitalization and historic preservation efforts. For a family living in Wabash or looking to move there, the housing and cost of living are likely to be accessible compared with many other parts of the country.
The school district itself has some program offerings that are publicly described elsewhere, such as a dual language immersion program and a focus on early college, but no recent district-level changes or initiatives were confirmed in the available information, so it would be fair for a parent to ask the district office directly about any new academic programs, support structures, or facility updates that could affect an elementary student. What is clear from the evidence is that O J Neighbours Elementary School is a neighborhood elementary school in a stable but slowly shrinking city, serving a primarily white and economically mixed student body, and facing a clear opportunity to lift academic performance from a level that currently trails the local average.
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