Wells County is located in the northeastern part of the state of Indiana. There are three public school systems within the county. The Southern Wells Community School System is in the southern most part of Wells County located on county road 300 West six miles south of Liberty Center. The Southern Wells Community is composed of approximately 36 square miles that includes the four townships of Chester, Jackson, Liberty and Nottingham.

There are no large towns or cities within the school district. However, the townships of Chester, Liberty and Nottingham each have a post office and a volunteer fire department. Chester township is locating a new fire station and EMS garage in the property adjacent to the school to the south. There is another post office and fire department in Poneto, a small community in both Southern Wells school district and Bluffton-Harrison school district. There are several small towns located in the school district which include: Liberty Center, Poneto, Petroleum, Domestic, Phoenix, Nottingham, Keystone, Mt. Zion, McNatt and Dillman. The school and churches are the centers for a majority of the activities of the district. The school functions as the meeting place for groups such as Campus Life, Scouts, 4-H and Farm Bureau. There is a genuine sense of connection between our school and the community.

Farming is the major enterprise in the school district and there are also a few businesses. Most people are employed in one of the nearby towns or cities which host a wide variety of industries and businesses. Bluffton, Montpelier, Hartford City, and Berne are short drives for employment opportunities. Many drive further to work in Marion (25 miles), Muncie (30 miles), or Fort Wayne (40 miles).

Communication with all persons in the Southern Wells school district is complicated because there are no newspapers, radio, or telephone systems that serves the entire district. This district is unique because there are eight different telephone exchanges in the district, two telephone area codes, thirteen post offices and the district borders seven different school districts. To address this problem, the schools publish a parent newsletter ten times each year.

The elementary school was rebuilt and opened in 1995 after a major fire consumed 75-80% of the school structure. The school serves 465 students K-6. The junior-senior high school opened in 1966 and serves 430 students in grades 7 to 12. The campus includes the junior-senior high school, the administrative offices, a vocational agriculture/auto mechanics/physical education building, a large storage building, a bus garage and a small farm plot on the campus. There are two woods and areas providing an outdoor environmental lab. During 1993 and 1994 , the elementary school was rebuilt from ground up, an automotive mechanics building was attached to the agriculture facility and there was remodeling of the junior-senior high school. Air conditioning was added to the entire building, a media retrieval system and additional computers were added and all computers in the school district were networked. Southern Wells is affiliated with the Region 8 educational district for professional development, educational resources and group purchasing of equipment and supplies. Both schools have access to the internet, multiple computer labs and computer access in nearly every classroom. The school district is one of the forerunners in interactive video communication with other schools (Vision Athena), allowing us to bring programs and classes to our students that would not otherwise be available to them. The high school houses a branch of the Wells County Library (with internet accessibility) for the Southern part of the county, making materials quickly accessible to our students and patrons.

The parents and patrons of the Southern Wells Community are a hardworking group of individuals who take pride in what they do and maintain a high regard for family standards. Many of the graduates leave the community for a time but return to raise their families. This small, rural atmosphere lends itself to a sense of camaraderie and spirit of unity not often found in a more industrialized community. This was evidences strongly during the elementary school rebuilding project.

Southern Wells High School became an Indiana 2000 school in 1992, which has helped us make many changes to improve the educational opportunities of our students. Southern Wells was the first school in Indiana to initiate what has become known as a 4-Block schedule arrangement.