SOUTHSIDE EL

SOUTHSIDE EL, a sprawling elementary-level community in CLEVELAND, Texas, overseen by CLEVELAND ISD, enrolls 1,016 students, covering grades pre-K through 5. Compared to the state average of about 519 students per school, that is 96% bigger than typical.

SOUTHSIDE EL is one of 11 schools operated by CLEVELAND ISD, a district that works with 12,513 students overall.

On the student-mix side, SOUTHSIDE EL records that nearly all students (87%) are Hispanic. The remainder consists of 9% White, 3% Black. That is visibly more Hispanic than the county at large, where the share is closer to 40%.

Looking at school resources, The school employs 68 full-time-equivalent teachers, for a student-teacher ratio near 14.9:1. The state averages about 15.1:1, putting this campus right in line with peers. An estimated 94% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, Liberty County runs at roughly 80%, so the school's eligibility rate is above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, SOUTHSIDE EL performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 32.8%, the actual is 22.3%, a residual of -10.5 points.

Around the school, census data for Liberty County shows the typical household earns roughly $68,703 per year, about 12% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and census figures put the poverty rate at about 16%. Across Liberty County's 41 public schools (combined enrollment of about 27,599 students), SOUTHSIDE EL is one campus in the mix.

The closest other public school is FREDERICK A DOUGLASS LEARNING ACADEMY, roughly 1.1 miles away. 6 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a five-mile radius. Ranking that nearby cluster on reported proficiency puts SOUTHSIDE EL at 5th of 7; the average score across the group is 29.3%.

SOUTHSIDE EL operates from a town-center location.

Trend over the last 7 years. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at SOUTHSIDE EL has edged down 22%, going from 1,309 students in 2018 to 1,016 in 2025. Over the same period, the Hispanic share edged up from 67% to 87%. Class-load math has tightened: from 17.4:1 in 2018 to 14.9:1 in 2025.

Within the allk12 community for this school, recent activity here tends to focus on fundraisers, lost-and-found posts, and report-card season. Anyone with firsthand experience at this school can post or comment.