Southside Middle School, Manchester NH

Original Research by School Decision on Southside Middle School

Southside Middle School sits on South Jewett Street in Manchester, the most populous city in New Hampshire, about an hour's drive north of Boston. The city built its identity around the Amoskeag Millyard, once the largest cotton textile complex in the world, and has spent the decades since World War II rebuilding its economy around technology firms like DEKA, cultural venues, and a mix of residential and commercial neighborhoods. The Merrimack River runs through, and the old mill district still anchors downtown. Manchester is a working city rather than a suburb, and Southside serves the families who live in it.

The school serves grades five through eight and is a regular public school within the Manchester School District, a system of roughly two dozen schools. Enrollment is moderate for a middle school, with students spread fairly evenly across the four grade levels. Just under half the student body qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch, which tells you this is a community with real economic diversity. The racial and ethnic mix is pluralistic: a little under half the students are White, the next largest group is Hispanic, and smaller shares are Black, multiracial, and Asian. Data on English learners and students with individualized education programs was not reported, so those populations are not visible here.

On New Hampshire's state assessment, the NH SAS, Southside's results sit well below state expectations in both math and English language arts across every grade tested. Math proficiency is low in all four grades, dipping most sharply in seventh grade. ELA is somewhat stronger, with the best result in eighth grade, but still a minority of students reach proficiency in any grade. Science is tested only in grades five and eight, and the pattern is similar: a small share of fifth graders and roughly a third of eighth graders meet the bar. Participation is high across the board, so the results reflect nearly the full student body rather than a narrow slice. No multi-year trend was available, which means there is no way to tell from the data whether these numbers are improving, holding, or declining. A parent weighing Southside would want to ask the school directly what its current improvement plan looks like and how it is addressing the gap between current proficiency and state expectations.

Because Southside is a middle school, there is no graduation rate to report. The data set also did not include discipline figures, course access details, staffing ratios, attendance, or program offerings. These are the kinds of gaps that often reflect what a state or district chooses to publish at the middle-school level rather than a sign that nothing is happening. Still, a family would do well to ask the school about its elective and support offerings.

At the district level, the Manchester School District saw publicly reported changes in 2022 that shaped the environment Southside operates in. Voters approved a budget that grew over the prior year and directed funding toward expanded social-emotional learning supports, special education services, and instructional coaching. A superintendent who had been serving on an interim basis was confirmed to the permanent role that spring. Governance runs through a Board of School Committee of fifteen members elected to two-year terms, with the mayor as chair, so policy direction is regularly subject to voter influence.

The housing market around Southside tells a practical story about what it costs to live here. Typical home values in the school's zip code are in the low $400,000 range, below the state benchmark but above the national one. Rents run near $1,900 monthly. In the broader Hillsborough County market, the median listing price sits much higher, around the mid-$500,000s, and homes move in roughly three to four weeks. Listing supply and demand scores are both strong, suggesting an active, competitive market. For a family renting near Southside, the cost burden is moderate relative to income; for one buying, the mortgage payment would run noticeably above rent.

Southside is a school doing the everyday work of a city middle school in a district that has recently invested in support services and coaching. Its academic results are the part a parent should press on hardest, and the missing program and staffing data means a school visit or a call to the principal would fill in real gaps that the numbers alone cannot.

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Academic performance

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

Math

Grade 519%

School 19% · District 13% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 16 pts below county median

Grade 624%

School 24% · District 16% · ▲ 8 pts above district

▼ 16 pts below state median · ▼ 12 pts below county median

Grade 711%

School 11% · District 17% · ▼ 6 pts below district

▼ 27 pts below state median · ▼ 21 pts below county median

Grade 823%

School 23% · District 14% · ▲ 9 pts above district

▼ 13 pts below state median · ▼ 6 pts below county median

English language arts

Grade 525%

School 25% · District 24% · ▲ 1 pts above district

▼ 33 pts below state median · ▼ 33 pts below county median

Grade 632%

School 32% · District 26% · ▲ 6 pts above district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 17 pts below county median

Grade 722%

School 22% · District 27% · ▼ 5 pts below district

▼ 34 pts below state median · ▼ 28 pts below county median

Grade 839%

School 39% · District 24% · ▲ 15 pts above district

▼ 14 pts below state median · ▼ 8 pts below county median

Science

Grade 515%

School 15% · District 12% · ▲ 3 pts above district

▼ 20 pts below state median · ▼ 18 pts below county median

Grade 830%

School 30% · District 17% · ▲ 13 pts above district

▼ 6 pts below state median · ▼ 2 pts below county median

This schoolManchester School District, 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 5Lower-income17%Higher-income34%17 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income23%Higher-income42%19 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income16%Higher-income29%13 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income32%Higher-income49%17 pp gap

Mathematics

Grade 5Lower-income13%Higher-income25%12 pp gap

Grade 6Lower-income15%Higher-income33%18 pp gap

Grade 7Lower-income8%Higher-income16%8 pp gap

Grade 8Lower-income16%Higher-income31%15 pp gap