Wallace Aylesworth Elementary

Wallace Aylesworth Elementary is a K–5 school with 401 students on Central Avenue in Portage, Indiana, part of Portage Township Schools and the second-largest of the district's eight elementary schools. Its defining story is a long, steady slide in how it compares with other Indiana schools: it ranked in the 54th–55th percentile with 3 stars as recently as 2016–17 and 2017–18, but fell to the 21st percentile with 1 star in 2025–26 — a drop of roughly 33 percentile points over eight reporting years. The district overall sits at the 30th percentile, so Wallace Aylesworth Elementary now ranks below its own district's average.

Among Portage's eight elementaries in 2025–26, Aylesworth posts the lowest Math and Science proficiency, the lowest Social Studies proficiency except one school, and the second-lowest English Language Arts score. It and Central Elementary School, just 0.47 miles away, are the district's only two 1-star, bottom-quartile elementaries. Aylesworth does outperform some nearby schools outside its district, including Charter School of the Dunes, Virgil I Bailey Elementary School and John I Meister Elementary School, but trails every school in its own. Results also drop sharply by grade — 5th-grade Math sits at 14.1%, far below the state. Notably, the school's own scores have stayed fairly flat while peers improved, so the decline is relative rather than a sudden collapse.

The clearest bright spot is attendance: 15.8% chronic absenteeism is better than both the district and the state. Class sizes improved from 21.5:1 in 2022–23 to 15.4:1 in 2024–25, though results have not followed, and per-student spending ($10,347) is the lowest among district peers. Science looks like a district-wide weakness rather than a building-specific one. The main takeaway for families: challenges are concentrated in Math and the upper grades, while student engagement and class size are real strengths.