Helen Lemme Elementary School is located at 3100 East Washington Street and has approximately 280 students in kindergarten through sixth grade. There is one classroom for students with special needs and one for early childhood special education.

Helen Lemme School was constructed in 1969 as an open-space building with folding doors between the rooms. The school was named for Helen Lemme, an African-American woman who was prominent in Iowa City and who housed and fed many African-American students attending the University of Iowa. When the building opened in 1970, approximately 230 students were in attendance. In the fall of 1970, Helen Lemme's sons, Lawrence and Paul and their families and several friends of Helen Lemme attended the dedication ceremony. At that time a memorial fund for Helen Lemme was established to purchase books for the Lemme School library.

In 1972 LEO, Lemme Education Outdoors, was started in the fifth and sixth grades. Outdoor activities have been held at a former Girl Scout Camp, Kent Park and the Macbride Field Campus. Activities have included survival techniques, fishing, using a compass, outdoor art, outdoor cooking and nature studies.

Lemme has had four principals: Walter Schnelle {1970-1975}, Ralph Delozier {1975-1987}, Pam Ehly{1987-1991}, Michael Kelley (1991-).

For twenty-seven years Lemme School had temporaries for music and art, and for a while the temporaries were used for kindergarten and a second grade classroom. In 1997 at the end of the school year Helen Lemme School underwent extensive renovation. Art and music classrooms, the main office, principal's office and teacher workroom were added to the front of the building. A computer lab was built where the teacher workroom was located and the media center was enlarged. At the beginning of the 1998 school year there was a dedication for the new addition.