Southside Elementary School

Southside Elementary School serves 681 students in prekindergarten through fifth grade in Sarasota, Florida. The school earns a composite score of 9.4 out of 10 — rated Exceptional — with academic performance scoring 9.6 and growth scoring 9.2, reflecting strong outcomes across both achievement and student progress. The numbers place Southside among Florida's elite public schools.

It ranks 12th out of 3,777 public schools statewide and 10th out of 2,196 elementary schools in Florida, outperforming every other public school in the state. Locally, it holds the top spot among all 36 schools in Sarasota, making it the clear academic leader in the district. Southside operates as a regular public school with a student-teacher ratio of 14.2 to 1, keeping class sizes manageable and supporting the kind of individualized attention that likely contributes to its sustained performance.

For families searching in the Sarasota area, the data consistently points to Southside as the highest-performing elementary option available — not by a narrow margin, but by measurable distance from its peers. Parents prioritizing academics at the elementary level will find few public schools anywhere in Florida that match what this school delivers.