Southside Elementary School

Southside elementary school has some great programs, if your child can get into them. The problems I have with this school are, first, during my daughter's 3rd grade, two teachers combined classes for both math and writing out of sheer laziness, meaning that in each subject there were 60 kids! My daughter was intimidated due to the size, and fell behind. As a result, this year I pulled her out of Southside and have been homeschooling her to get her caught up. My son, who is a first grader has had a much better experience. He had Mrs. Gross for Kindergarten and Mrs. Mann for 1st grade, both of whom are exceptional teachers. My second bone to pick with Southside is the advanced programs they offer (Team and Academic Challenge). My daughter wanted desperately to get into the AC program, but didn't test quite high enough. She was devastated. The AC kids and Team kids are given far more opportunities, and are paraded around the school. I've talked to the administration about why they don't expand the program so the kids who want to be challenged have that opportunity, and they chalk it up to funding. Why is it so difficult to train other teachers they already have on staff??
--Submitted by a parent

Southside Elementary is a great school. Coming from Georgia schools this school exceeds all expectations I had. Teacher/parent communication is great. Principals are involved. Many extracurricular activites for children to participate in. I've found that the staff is really concerned with the overall academic success of my children. I'd recommend this school to anyone. My 2nd and 5th graders would also agree.
--Submitted by a parent

The AC program at Southside was outstanding. The non-AC program was not. Small town politics matter here. A small group of parents run the school. Too many teachers have their own children in the school. Many teachers are just waiting on retirement.
--Submitted by a parent

I have five children and four have gone to Southside. They have all received an excellent education and are all high achieving. I credit this mostly to the caring teachers and awesome learning environment from the team class and AC gifted program. A big thanks to you all from a pleased parent!
--Submitted by Susan Shutty, a parent