The top reported proficiency rate is 78% in Science. The lowest is 17% in Math.
Original Research by School Decision on Wahoo Elementary School
Wahoo Elementary School serves students in preschool through fifth grade as part of the Wahoo Public Schools district. It is a regular public school, and its enrollment is small for an elementary school covering that grade span, with a student body that is overwhelmingly white. Around three in ten students qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The school is located in Wahoo, the Saunders County seat, a small Midwestern town that has grown noticeably in recent years and now functions partly as a commuter community for the Lincoln metro area, roughly a half-hour drive south. Housing values in the area sit slightly above the state benchmark and below the national one, and the market has been appreciating. The median household income for the country is solid.
On state assessments administered in the most recent school year, the picture is mixed and deserves a close look. In third grade, just over half of students met proficiency in reading, and the same share did so in math. In fourth grade, slightly fewer than half were proficient in reading, and in fifth grade, that figure was similar. Math results in fourth and fifth grade showed no tested students reaching proficiency, a stark outcome that a parent would want to discuss directly with the school to understand the instructional context and any supports in place. Science performance in fifth grade was strong, with most students demonstrating proficiency.
When the school is compared against other districts in Saunders County—there are five in total—its overall proficiency index across tested subjects and grades places it in the bottom quartile of that set. This is a meaningful signal: the county comparison set is small, but the school's standing is at the lower end. The multi-year trend lines, while limited to a single year of data points in the available record, show that overall proficiency rates across grade levels for the school were in a moderate range for reading, lower for math, and high for science. Because only one year of trend data was present, it is not possible to say whether these results represent a change or a stable pattern.
The school does not serve high school grades, so there is no graduation rate to report. Data on chronic absenteeism, staffing ratios, discipline, and course access were not available in the materials provided. The district brief showed no parent-relevant changes, such as boundary adjustments, program launches, or policy shifts, that were publicly reported in recent years, so that section is necessarily thin.
Wahoo itself offers a compact downtown corridor anchored by the Saunders County Courthouse and city offices, with a modest but active civic life built around annual events like the county fair and Polka Fests. Parks, a civic center with an indoor pool, a golf course, and baseball diamonds are present. The town has a low vacancy rate in housing, and a new elementary school building and aquatics center have been constructed, reflecting recent investment. Public transit was not identified; the town is car-dependent. Families considering this school should weigh the local strengths of a small-town setting, new facilities, and reasonable proximity to Lincoln against the academic results, particularly the concerning fourth- and fifth-grade math proficiency figures and the school's low comparative standing within its own county.
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