Horace Mann Elementary School

As a compact primary school in Ottumwa, Iowa, Horace Mann Elementary School enrolls 250 students from grades K through 5, run under Ottumwa Comm School District. Compared to the state average of about 325 students per school, that is 23% smaller than typical.

Ottumwa Comm School District comprises 12 schools with combined enrollment of 5,005 students; Horace Mann Elementary School is among them.

For racial and ethnic makeup, Horace Mann Elementary School records that the largest single group is White, at 55% of enrollment; the rest looks like 19% Hispanic, 15% Black, 7% Pacific Islander, 2% Asian. The wider county runs roughly 79% White, putting the school's mix considerably less White than the area baseline.

On the income-and-resources front, Horace Mann Elementary School logs 19 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 13.1:1. That tracks the state average closely. An estimated 34% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. That share is noticeably below Wapello County's rate of about 48%.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Horace Mann Elementary School is in the bottom 10% of Iowa public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 75.1%; Horace Mann Elementary School posts 64.6%, -10.5 points below that line.

In the surrounding community, census data for Wapello County shows the typical household earns roughly $64,766 per year, roughly 20% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 12%. In all, Wapello County runs 18 public schools (combined enrollment of about 6,892 students), of which Horace Mann Elementary School is one.

The closest other public school is James Elementary School, roughly 0.8 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Horace Mann Elementary School. On composite proficiency, Horace Mann Elementary School comes 2nd of 7 in the immediate cluster, ahead of the nearby-schools average of 51.0%.

The school occupies a town-center site.

Looking at the recent track record. Over the past 7-year window, the student count increased 3%: 243 students in 2018 compared to 250 in 2025. Over the same period, the White share edged down from 69% to 55%. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 16.6:1 in 2018 to 13.1:1 today.

On allk12, the page collects discussion, questions, and updates around enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. The community welcomes input from current and former families.