Southside Elementary School

Southside Elementary School, a moderately sized elementary school in Madison, Wisconsin, run under Madison Metropolitan School District, teaches 336 students, covering grades pre-K through 5.

Within Madison Metropolitan School District, which oversees 53 schools and 25,155 students, Southside Elementary School is one campus in the system.

In terms of who attends, Southside Elementary School reports that the most-represented group is Hispanic (49%), with the rest of the student body spread across multiple groups. The remainder reads as 26% Black, 13% White, 8% multiracial, 4% Asian. By comparison, Dane County as a whole is about 8% Hispanic, so the school skews considerably more Hispanic than its surroundings.

Looking at school resources, Staff filings list 35 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 9.7:1 students per teacher. That figure is tighter than the state norm's 14.7:1 average. Roughly 76% of students at Southside Elementary School qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, often used as a Title I proxy. That share is north of Dane County's rate of about 32%.

With demographic context factored in, Southside Elementary School sits in the middle band of the BeatsExpectations distribution. Schools with this campus's student mix typically land near 31.3%; this one delivers 19.0%.

In the broader community, ACS estimates for Dane County put median household earnings sit near $89,975, about 55% of the adult population holds a bachelor's degree or above, and the poverty rate sits near 5%. In all, Dane County runs 169 public schools (combined enrollment of about 78,525 students), of which Southside Elementary School is one.

Nearest neighbor: Badger Rock Middle, around 0.0 miles off. Counting just inside five miles, 8 other public schools cluster around Southside Elementary School. On composite proficiency, Southside Elementary School comes 8th of 8 in the immediate cluster, behind the nearby-schools average of 39.0%.

Geographically, the school is in a downtown area.

Five-year trend. Southside Elementary School's enrollment has contracted 31% since 2018, when it stood at 489 (now 336). The Hispanic share of enrollment edged up from 30% to 49% over that span. Class-load math has fell: from 11.3:1 in 2018 to 9.7:1 in 2025.

On this page, recent activity here tends to focus on enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Parents, students, alumni, and staff are welcome to weigh in.