SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL

As a close-knit high school in BEE BRANCH, Arkansas, SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL serves 249 students from grades 7 through 12, one of the schools within SOUTH SIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT (Van Buren). That puts it 51% leaner than the typical public school in Arkansas, which averages around 510 students.

SOUTH SIDE SCHOOL DISTRICT (Van Buren) comprises 2 schools with combined enrollment of 518 students; SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL is among them.

On the student-mix side, SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL shows that nearly all students (90%) are White. Other groups include 5% multiracial, 4% Hispanic. That mix tracks the wider county fairly closely.

On the income-and-resources front, On paper, SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL has 35 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 7.1:1. Statewide, the average ratio sits near 8.8:1, putting SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL tighter than the state norm the norm. An estimated 99% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal.

On a demographically-adjusted basis, SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 23.1%; this one delivers 33.4%.

Across the wider county, census data for Van Buren County shows median household earnings sit near $50,354, roughly 15% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and the poverty rate sits near 13%. Across Van Buren County's 7 public schools (combined enrollment of about 2,057 students), SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL is one campus in the mix.

SOUTH SIDE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.0 miles from this campus. 6 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a ten-mile radius, suggesting a relatively low-density school footprint. On composite proficiency, SOUTH SIDE HIGH SCHOOL comes 6th of 9 in the immediate cluster, beneath the nearby-schools average of 38.1%.

The campus sits in a countryside setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count showed little movement: 255 students in 2018 compared to 249 in 2025. Class-load math has tightened: from 9.3:1 in 2018 to 7.1:1 in 2025.

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