John B. Whitsitt Elementary vs Waverly-Belmont Elementary School

John B. Whitsitt Elementary and Waverly-Belmont Elementary School are separated by just 2.9 miles in Nashville, Tennessee, yet both rank among the top elementary schools in the state — Whitsitt at #29 of 1,785 Tennessee schools, Waverly-Belmont at #30 of 1,785 — with identical overall ratings of 9.2/10. For parents weighing this choice, the overall scores tell almost none of the real story; the underlying subscores reveal two meaningfully different schools.

Academically, Waverly-Belmont Elementary School holds a clear edge: its academic score of 9.5/10 outpaces John B. Whitsitt Elementary's 8.1/10 by 1.4 points — a substantial gap at this scale. The growth picture flips that dynamic. John B. Whitsitt Elementary posts a growth score of 9.8/10 against Waverly-Belmont's 9.5/10, meaning Whitsitt is advancing students at a marginally faster rate year over year. Families focused on raw achievement levels will lean Waverly-Belmont; those who weight how much a school accelerates individual students will favor Whitsitt.

On enrollment and staffing, the two schools are close but not identical. Waverly-Belmont enrolls 528 students to Whitsitt's 504, and Waverly-Belmont's student-teacher ratio of 16.5:1 runs slightly higher than Whitsitt's 15.3:1. That 1.2-student difference per teacher is modest, but for parents who prioritize smaller class sizes, Whitsitt holds a small structural advantage.

One concrete programmatic difference separates them from the start: John B. Whitsitt Elementary serves grades PK–05, adding a pre-kindergarten option that Waverly-Belmont Elementary School, which begins at kindergarten, does not offer. Families with children not yet in kindergarten who want to stay with the same school community through fifth grade have a clear practical reason to choose Whitsitt.