Walnut Elementary School

Walnut Elementary School is one of the minimally staffed K-5 schools in New Ross, Indiana, part of South Montgomery Com Sch Corp, with 166 students on its rolls from grades pre-K through 5. That puts it 62% below the typical public school in Indiana, which averages around 436 students.

South Montgomery Com Sch Corp runs 5 schools in total, collectively educating 1,684 students. Walnut Elementary School is one of those campuses.

On the student-mix side, Walnut Elementary School logs that nearly all students (92%) are White. Other groups include 5% Hispanic. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

In terms of school funding signals, The school currently runs with 13 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 13.1:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 15.5:1 average. Roughly 36% of students at Walnut Elementary School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Montgomery County (around 47%), the school's rate is south of typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Walnut Elementary School performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 50.0%, the actual is 48.4%, a residual of -1.5 points.

Across the wider county, census data for Montgomery County shows median household income runs about $71,479, roughly 20% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and roughly 6% of residents live below the federal poverty line. Walnut Elementary School is one of 17 public schools in Montgomery County (combined enrollment of about 6,261 students).

The closest other public school is Ladoga Elementary School, roughly 5.4 miles away. Within ten miles, there are 8 other public schools, a sparser pattern than typical urban areas. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Walnut Elementary School at 4th of 6; the average score across the group is 52.2%.

The school occupies a low-density site.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count declined 13%: 191 students in 2018 compared to 166 in 2025. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 19.5:1 in 2018 to 13.1:1 today.

Inside the community feed, posts here usually surface around classroom updates, athletics, and weather closures. Members of the school community can share what they know.