The top reported proficiency rate is 13% in English language arts. The lowest is 7% in Science.
Original Research by School Decision on Westside Elementary
Westside Elementary serves students from prekindergarten through fifth grade in Memphis, within the Memphis-Shelby County Schools district. The school sits in the 38127 zip code, a part of the city that is not a tourist destination but rather a residential and industrial stretch north of downtown. Memphis itself is a large city with well-known cultural and civic anchors—Beale Street, the National Civil Rights Museum, Graceland, FedExForum, and the Mississippi River waterfront—but the school’s immediate neighborhood is farther from those central attractions. The housing market in this zip code is notably affordable, with home values well below the national median and rents that similarly fall short of national averages; values have recently been declining by a modest annual rate, which may matter to families deciding whether to buy or rent in the area.
Westside Elementary is a regular public school with a student body that is overwhelmingly composed of Black students, with a very small share of white students, a modest Hispanic population, and even smaller numbers of Asian students and students of two or more races. The school is not a charter school, and data on its Title I status was not available in the record. Enrollment counts are moderate for an elementary school, and the grade distribution shows a somewhat larger kindergarten and fifth-grade class relative to the middle grades. No data was provided on the share of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, on students with disabilities served under an IEP, or on English learners, so a family that considers those factors an important part of the peer environment would want to ask the school directly for current information.
On state assessments, Westside Elementary’s academic performance falls well below state averages across the tested subjects and grades. In math, roughly one in ten students scored at or above the proficient level, meaning a large majority of students are not meeting the state’s target for grade-level performance. In English language arts, the proficiency rate was only slightly higher, around one in eight students. Science results were lower still, with fewer than one in ten students reaching proficiency. All of these results place Westside Elementary in the bottom quartile among schools in Shelby County when comparing overall proficiency across subjects and grades. Participation rates on the tests were very high, above ninety-nine percent, so the results reflect nearly the entire student body. The social studies assessment data is older and was suppressed, so it does not contribute to the current picture.
Because Westside Elementary serves only through fifth grade, there is no graduation rate to report, and no chronic absenteeism data was available in this record. The school’s course access, staffing levels, and discipline data were also absent, leaving gaps in the picture of daily school environment and support structures. A parent who wants to understand class sizes, teacher experience, or how the school handles behavioral matters would need to source that information from the school or district.
The parent district, Memphis-Shelby County Schools, has been the subject of publicly reported planning around school closures and a property tax referendum in recent years, which means the broader district landscape is in a period of structural and financial change. That context may affect budget allocations, programming, and school choice options for families in Westside’s attendance zone.
Westside Elementary presents as a school where the academic attainment is notably low relative to both state benchmarks and other schools in Shelby County. A family considering this school would be weighing that reality against the school’s role as a neighborhood elementary, the affordability of the surrounding housing market, and the larger district context of organizational change. It is the kind of school where a parent may want to ask the principal and teachers directly about what academic interventions and enrichment programs are in place, how the school supports students who are below grade level, and what the trajectory of recent performance has been, so they have a fuller sense of the daily experience beyond the proficiency numbers.
See more original research from School Decision →