Aylesworth Elementary School will soon be razed, but Wallace Aylesworth’s legacy will live on with Aylesworth Middle School.
The Portage Township School Board approved naming the new middle school to be built at the site of the current Aylesworth Elementary School after the longtime educator and former superintendent.
Bids for the demolition of the elementary school will be sought in November. “It’s the next step, a big step,” School Board President Andy Maletta said.
New boundaries for the district’s remaining elementary schools are expected to be approved at the board’s Oct. 27 meeting, Superintendent Amanda Alaniz said. Starting next year, elementary schools will house grades K-4, with Fegely Middle School becoming an intermediate school serving grades 5-6 and the new middle school serving grades 7-8.
The demographer hired by the district is putting the final touches on a report to be given to the board, she said. Teachers are eager to learn where they will be teaching next year.
Alaniz and other administrators have been meeting with faculty and staff to discuss the plan and have received valuable input, with staff members coming up with details that hadn’t already been thought of, she said.
The district’s first new school since 1979 will be built where Aylesworth Elementary School now stands. Once the new Wallace Aylesworth Middle School is built, the current Willowcreek Middle School will be razed.
Wallace Aylesworth was first honored with Aylesworth Junior High School, at 5910 Central Ave., being named in his honor. It’s now the elementary school to be razed. The junior high, which opened in September 1963, served grades 7-8.
Aylesworth was a longtime teacher, principal and superintendent in Portage Township, but his teaching career began long ago and far away. He taught grades 1-8 in Dickinson, North Dakota, in 1922 and 1923. From there, he moved to Porter County, where he taught at Gates Corners in Porter Township and Frame in Pine Township in 1924 and 1925.
From 1925 to 1929, he taught at Aylesworth in Porter County. Between 1930 and 1951, he taught at various locations around Lake and Porter counties, including Washington Township, Hebron, Boone Grove, Wheeler and Hobart.
He returned to Portage Township in 1951, serving as a principal from 1951 to 1954 and supervising principal from 1954 to 1957.
Aylesworth served as superintendent of Portage Township Schools from 1957 until his retirement in 1968. He died in 1972.
As a teacher in Portage, Aylesworth’s salary was $14,000. As superintendent, it was $21,437, Alaniz said.
“We’d like to continue to honor him and his phenomenal career,” Alaniz said.
“I’m really happy that we’ve made this decision,” said Maletta, who was in grade school when Aylesworth was superintendent. “Anything less than naming Willowcreek Middle School for Wallace Aylesworth would have been a shame.”
Three days before Monday’s board meeting, the Portage High School football field was named for longtime coach Les Klein. That follows the Terry Levenda Learning Lab and Dusty Rhodes pool in honoring Portage’s educators.
“We’ve got this history, and we’re looking at folks” who have made incredible contributions to schools for naming things, Maletta said.
Board Vice President Wilma Vazquez said she met several people at a reception for Les Klein on Friday who might be able to come back to tell students how Portage schools impacted their lives in positive ways.
In other business, the board approved a 2026 budget of nearly $97 million.
The board also approved a walking path and lighting project for Miami Park at the corner of Lute and Airport roads. The Portage Parks Department leases the land from the school district.
The walking path is already built and paved. The lighting still needs to be completed.
“I think it will be a great enhancement to that park,” Maletta said.
Parking there is limited, so the lighting will help neighborhood people. It’s getting more popular since its opening last November, he said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.