HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, a mid-tier elementary campus in NEBRASKA CITY, Nebraska, overseen by NEBRASKA CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS, serves 330 students, covering grades 3 through 5. That puts it 21% above the typical public school in Nebraska, which averages around 272 students.

Across the 4 schools in NEBRASKA CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS (1,413 students total), HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL accounts for its share of the district's footprint.

In terms of who attends, HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL reports that the largest single group is White, at 72% of enrollment. Beyond that, the school shows 26% Hispanic. The wider county runs roughly 87% White, putting the school's mix noticeably less White than the area baseline.

On the resource side, HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL records 22 full-time-equivalent teachers, putting the student-to-teacher ratio at about 14.8:1. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 21.0:1 average. Roughly 62% of students at HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Otoe County (around 40%), the school's rate is north of typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is in the bottom 10% of Nebraska public schools. The BeatsExpectations model predicts schools with this FRL share to land around 54.8%; HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL posts 46.0%, -8.8 points below that line.

Across the wider county, community-level numbers for Otoe County indicate the typical household earns roughly $82,188 per year, about 27% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 9%. HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is one of 10 public schools in Otoe County (combined enrollment of about 2,543 students).

NEBRASKA CITY MIDDLE SCHOOL is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.4 miles from this campus. 3 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. On composite proficiency, HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL comes 6th of 6 in the immediate cluster, below the nearby-schools average of 62.1%.

HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL operates from a small-town location.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count climbed 10%: 301 students in 2018 compared to 330 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share rose from 20% to 26%. Class-load math has grew: from 12.7:1 in 2018 to 14.8:1 in 2025.

In the discussion threads here, members of the HAYWARD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL community share and discuss pickup logistics, teacher feedback, and after-school programs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.