Brookside Elementary

Brookside Elementary is one of the moderately sized K-5 schools in Gastonia, North Carolina, one of the schools within Gaston County Schools, with 512 students on its rolls from grades pre-K through 5.

Brookside Elementary is one of 56 schools operated by Gaston County Schools, a district that enrolls 30,995 students overall.

On the student-mix side, Brookside Elementary reports that the largest single group is White at 33%, but no single group is in the majority. Other groups include 32% Black, 27% Hispanic, 6% multiracial. By comparison, Gaston County as a whole is about 68% White, so the school skews meaningfully less White than its surroundings.

On the resource side, On paper, Brookside Elementary has 34 full-time-equivalent teachers, translating to a class-load average of around 15.2:1. The state averages about 14.9:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. Roughly 99% of students at Brookside Elementary qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. Set against Gaston County (around 85%), the school's rate is somewhat above typical.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, Brookside Elementary performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 48.7%, the actual is 38.5%, a residual of -10.2 points.

Around the school, ACS estimates for Gaston County put the typical household earns roughly $67,478 per year, roughly 27% of adults have completed at least a four-year degree, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 10%. In all, Gaston County runs 61 public schools (combined enrollment of about 35,898 students), of which Brookside Elementary is one.

The closest other public school is Warlick Academy, roughly 1.3 miles away. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Brookside Elementary. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts Brookside Elementary at 2nd of 4; the average score across the group is 33.7%.

The campus sits in an inner-city setting.

Five-year trend. Over the past 7-year window, the student count contracted 15%: 600 students in 2018 compared to 512 in 2025. White enrollment moved from 54% to 33% across the same window. The student-to-teacher ratio tightened from 17.2:1 in 2018 to 15.2:1 today.

Within the allk12 community for this school, posts here usually surface around school events, parent volunteer needs, and clubs. The community welcomes input from current and former families.