The top reported proficiency rate is 59% in Science. The lowest is 0% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Wasmer Elementary School
Wasmer Elementary School is a regular public elementary school serving prekindergarten through fifth grade in Grand Island, Nebraska, part of the Grand Island Public Schools district. The school sits on the south side of Clark Street, within the city’s residential fabric. Grand Island itself is a mid-sized regional hub, blending agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, and retail, with major employers including Hornady, CHI Health St. Francis Hospital, and Union Pacific Railroad. The city is largely auto-dependent; as the largest in Nebraska without fixed-route public transit, it relies on a demand-responsive system requiring advance reservations. Civic life is anchored near downtown, particularly in the Railside Business Improvement District, and the city has seen ongoing reinvestment in its downtown and healthcare infrastructure, including the opening of a regional medical center in 2020 and the earlier relocation of the Nebraska State Fair to the city. A new Starr Elementary School opened in the district within recent years, a change affecting attendance boundaries.
Wasmer’s enrollment is relatively modest for an elementary school serving PK-5. The student body is diverse, with a composition that is predominantly Hispanic, followed by a substantial share of white students, and much smaller shares of Black, two-or-more-races, and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander students. The school does not have reported data for students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, nor for students receiving special education services or identified as English learners, so a parent interested in those support structures would need to ask the school directly.
Academic performance on the Nebraska Student-Centered Assessment System (NSCAS) for the 2024-25 school year shows a pattern that merits close attention. In third-grade English language arts, about a third of students met the proficiency bar, while fourth and fifth grade ELA results show zero percent proficient. In math, the same pattern appears: zero percent proficient across all three tested grades. Science, which is tested only at fifth grade, had a markedly different outcome, with a clear majority of students reaching proficiency. Taken as a whole across tested subjects and grades, Wasmer’s proficiency index places it in the bottom quartile relative to other school districts within Hall County, a county with four districts where the median proficiency is substantially higher. The multi-year trend data for the school shows that in prior years, proficiency rates in both ELA and math were not zero, suggesting that the current year’s reported numbers may represent a significant shift; a parent would want to clarify with the school how these figures were arrived at and what interventions are in place. The science trend also shows a decline from a higher previous level.
Wasmer is a regular public school with no charter or magnet designation; its governance and Title I status were not reported in the available data. There is no reported information on discipline, student attendance, chronic absenteeism, course access, or staffing ratios, so those dimensions of the school environment are not part of the picture here. Because Wasmer serves only elementary grades, there is no graduation rate to report.
This is a school where a family would want to have a direct conversation with the principal and teachers about academic support and current classroom conditions. The student body is diverse and the setting is a solidly working- and middle-class regional city. The district has invested in new school capacity, a sign of attention to growth. But the assessment results, particularly the zero-percent-proficient figures in multiple grades and subjects, are unusual for a school that serves a general student population, and understanding what is behind them is essential before forming a judgment about the academic pathway Wasmer offers.
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