Southside Elementary School, Sarasota FL

Original Research by School Decision on Southside Elementary School

Southside Elementary sits on Webber Street in the city of Sarasota, serving children from pre-kindergarten through fifth grade as a regular public school in the Sarasota County district. Its enrollment is on the larger side for an elementary school of its type, with grades spread fairly evenly from kindergarten through fifth. The student body skews toward a white majority, with Hispanic students making up the next largest share and a smaller mix of Asian, Black, and multiracial students. A modest share of the student population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, placing this school toward the lower end of economic need relative to many Florida elementary schools. Data on English learner and special education populations were not reported in the materials available.

The academic picture is a genuine strength here. On Florida's FAST assessments in the most recent school year, proficiency in math runs from the high eighties into the mid-nineties across tested grades, with the fourth-grade cohort showing the highest result. Reading proficiency across third, fourth, and fifth grades sits in the low-to-upper eighties, with fourth grade again at the top. On the fifth-grade statewide science assessment, proficiency lands solidly in the upper eighties as well. These are strong numbers by any reasonable statewide comparison, and they hold across all three tested subjects. Multi-year trend data was not available, so whether this represents improvement, stability, or a shift from prior years cannot be said from what was provided.

Because Southside serves only pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, there is no graduation rate, no high school course access, and no AP or dual-enrollment data to report. Those measures simply do not apply to the grade band.

The comparison framework for placing Southside against its neighbors is limited by the county structure of the data. Sarasota County has a single district, so a meaningful side-by-side with peer districts in the county cannot be built. A parent wanting broader context would need to look at the school against state or regional averages directly.

The school sits within a Sarasota that is in active change. The district recently approved a plan, publicly reported in late 2025, to convert several elementary schools into K-8 campuses and add STEAM and Cambridge programming beginning in 2026. Southside is not listed among the schools being converted, but the restructuring reshapes the district's elementary landscape and could affect boundary assignments and program availability over time. Voters also renewed the district's property tax referendum through 2030, locking in a meaningful share of operating funds that support teacher recruitment, arts programming, and extended instruction. These are stable signals for a family thinking beyond the immediate school year.

The neighborhood context is Sarasota city itself, a Gulf Coast city whose downtown walkable core includes cultural institutions, bayfront parks, a county library, restaurants, and arts venues. The housing market around this zip code carries home values well above both the state and national medians, and they have pulled back modestly from recent highs. Rents have moved in the opposite direction, ticking up year over year. The rent-to-income ratio in this area runs toward the higher end of what is typically considered affordable. Sarasota overall is in a sustained growth phase driven by in-migration, and the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods are seeing new multifamily development alongside that pressure.

For a family entering pre-kindergarten or kindergarten in Sarasota's central city, Southside offers a strong proficiency baseline across math, reading, and science, in a school where economic disadvantage among students is relatively low. The program offerings were not reported in the data provided, so a parent curious about enrichment, arts, or specialty programming would want to ask the school directly.

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Academic performance

How students perform on state tests, by grade, set against the district.

Math

Grade 390%

School 90% · District 73% · ▲ 17 pts above district

▲ 27 pts above state median · ▲ 19 pts above county median

Grade 496%

School 96% · District 72% · ▲ 24 pts above district

▲ 35 pts above state median · ▲ 26 pts above county median

Grade 587%

School 87% · District 66% · ▲ 21 pts above district

▲ 32 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

English language arts

Grade 385%

School 85% · District 67% · ▲ 18 pts above district

▲ 29 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

Grade 489%

School 89% · District 67% · ▲ 22 pts above district

▲ 35 pts above state median · ▲ 24 pts above county median

Grade 582%

School 82% · District 62% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 28 pts above state median · ▲ 22 pts above county median

Science

Grade 587%

School 87% · District 67% · ▲ 20 pts above district

▲ 34 pts above state median · ▲ 21 pts above county median

This schoolSARASOTA, same grade

Graduation rate (ACGR) reflects the federally published Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate for the most recent year available. We refresh this data annually at the close of each academic year in June. The federal source publishes a banded rate (for example, "90-94%") instead of an exact number for cohorts small enough to risk identifying individual students. The state distribution chart, where shown, plots every school in the state with a published rate or band; schools whose rate is federally suppressed are excluded. Where the federal source publishes a band rather than an exact rate, the school is placed within its band using a stable, ID-derived offset, so its position is consistent across visits.

Proficiency by household income

English language arts

Grade 3Lower-income68%Higher-income94%26 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income80%Higher-income92%12 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income58%Higher-income90%32 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 3Lower-income76%Higher-income96%21 pp gap

Grade 4Lower-income90%Higher-income98%8 pp gap

Grade 5Lower-income69%Higher-income94%24 pp gap