The top reported proficiency rate is 83% in Science. The lowest is 69% in English language arts.
Original Research by School Decision on Wheeler Elementary School
Wheeler Elementary School serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade in the Millard Public Schools district, a suburban portion of southwest Omaha. The school sits in a part of the city where median home values run well above the Nebraska average, and rents are elevated accordingly. The area has the profile of an established suburb within a large city, with relatively high housing costs compared to much of the state. One in about every five students qualifies for free or reduced-price meals, a share that is low by national standards.
The student body is predominantly white, with Hispanic students making up a modest share and Asian students a smaller one. Black, Native American, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and multiracial students each account for a very small fraction. The school enrolls roughly average numbers for an elementary school of its grade span, with enrollment distributed fairly evenly across kindergarten through fifth grade. Prekindergarten is a much smaller program.
On the state assessments administered in the 2024-25 school year, Wheeler’s students posted results that place above the midpoint among districts in Douglas County on an overall proficiency index. In math, the share of students meeting proficiency was solid in third grade, dipped a bit in fourth grade, and recovered somewhat in fifth. In English language arts, the pattern was similar, with third grade the strongest year and a gradual decline through fourth and fifth. Science, tested only in fifth grade, was notably strong. The multi-year trend data available for English language arts and math shows only a single year of results, so it is not possible to say whether performance has been rising or falling over time; the science results also come from a single year. A parent looking for trajectory would want to ask the school directly about how scores have moved in recent years.
Because Wheeler is an elementary school, there is no graduation rate to report, and chronic absenteeism data and special education and English learner counts were not available in the data reviewed. These are common gaps in the information released, not necessarily indicators of a problem, but a family with a child who has an individualized education plan or who is learning English may want to confirm directly with the school that the right supports are in place.
The school is a regular public school with no charter or magnet designation. Its Title I status was not reported. Millard Public Schools is the parent district, and publicly reported information showed no major recent changes or strategic shifts that would affect a typical family’s decision. The district’s stability is itself a notable feature: there are no announced boundary overhauls, school closures, or leadership transitions that would create uncertainty for an incoming kindergartner or a family moving into the attendance area.
Omaha itself is a large city with a diversified economy anchored by four Fortune 500 headquarters and a metro-area GDP that ranks among the largest in the region. The city’s culture and amenities are concentrated downtown and in the Old Market district, several miles from Wheeler’s southwest Omaha location. For daily life around the school, the built environment is typical suburban: car-dependent, with residential subdivisions, retail corridors, and little pedestrian infrastructure. The housing market in the school’s zip code is expensive relative to the state, which means the families who send their children here tend to be homeowners with above-average incomes.
Wheeler comes across as a solid suburban elementary school with a comfortable resource base, a largely white and economically advantaged student population, and academic results that are above average for its county. The strongest showing on state tests was in fifth-grade science, and math and reading were generally steady across the tested grades. The school does not offer unusual programs or standout specializations that would distinguish it from other elementary schools in Millard, and it does not have any red flags in the limited data available. For a family looking for a stable neighborhood school in an affluent part of Omaha, this is a straightforward and reasonable choice. For a family seeking racial or economic diversity, or a school with an explicit alternative pedagogical approach, the profile here is conventional and would not fit as well.
See more original research from School Decision →