South Shores Elem School

South Shores Elem School is an elementary-level community of mid-tier scale in Decatur, Illinois, part of Decatur SD 61, hosting 335 students in grades K through 6.

Within Decatur SD 61, which oversees 15 schools and 7,840 students, South Shores Elem School is one campus in the system.

For racial and ethnic makeup, South Shores Elem School shows that 51% of students identify as Black, with the remaining enrollment distributed across several groups. Other groups include 26% White, 18% multiracial, 4% Hispanic. By comparison, Macon County as a whole is about 16% Black, so the school skews meaningfully more Black than its surroundings.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 18 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 18.5:1 students per teacher. That figure is higher than the state norm's 13.9:1 average. About 87% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, which schools and policymakers use as a rough income-mix signal. Set against Macon County (around 61%), the school's rate is noticeably above typical.

After controlling for student poverty, South Shores Elem School sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 21.2%; this one delivers 8.0%.

In the surrounding community, community-level numbers for Macon County indicate median household earnings sit near $62,666, 24% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 10%. South Shores Elem School is one of 43 public schools in Macon County (combined enrollment of about 14,702 students).

Dennis Lab School is the nearest neighboring public school, about 0.5 miles from this campus. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around South Shores Elem School. On composite proficiency, South Shores Elem School comes 8th of 9 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 12.2%.

The campus sits in an inner-city setting.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at South Shores Elem School has rose 12%, going from 298 students in 2018 to 335 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 39% to 26% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio widened from 15.7:1 in 2018 to 18.5:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, posts here usually surface around school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. Members of the school community can share what they know.