Southside School District Superintendent Eric Johnson rummaged
through his office closet Thursday to find Bulldog bumper stickers
for honor roll students.
Hollister – Southside School District Superintendent Eric Johnson rummaged through his office closet Thursday to find Bulldog bumper stickers for honor roll students.
“Sometimes you just get lucky,” he said, pulling out two stacks of stickers.
Meanwhile, a parent from another district, who has been trying to get her daughter into Southside for over two years, makes sure her name and phone number are still on the school’s waiting list for admission.
“We have whole lists of people who are frustrated, but we don’t have the room,” Johnson said.
Southside is so popular that its Board of Trustees had to limit the student-to-teacher ratio to 24:1 in order to prevent the school from becoming overcrowded, Johnson said. This year, Southside has 255 students and 11 teachers.
“We feel the key to education is small classrooms,” he said. “And we’ve shown that we have a successful system.
“I truly believe that schools shouldn’t have more than 300 students,” Johnson added. “And (the schools) should be kindergarten through eighth grade so the younger kids have role models to look up to.”
Keeping the school small is not easy, said Board of Trustees President Bob Tiffany, who has two sons at Southside. School funding is based on average daily attendance, so more students means more money.
“It’s a balancing act,” he said. “You have to have enough students to balance the budget, but at the same time you have to keep classes small.”
Like many of San Benito County’s rural schools, Southside parents are very involved in all aspects of day to day operations, Johnson said.
Southside Parent Sharyn Ruso, who had to fight to keep her daughter at Southside after her family moved outside the district’s boundaries, understands why attending the school is so important.
“I wouldn’t want my daughter anywhere else,” she said. “Here it’s more like a family. The classes are small and there is more student-teacher interaction. I would have a cow if I would have to leave this school.”
Southside is popular because of its students, teachers and parents, Johnson said. The district also recently received a “Top Ranked School” award from the California Department of Education for posting high scores on standardized tests.
Although it may have a smaller budget than other San Benito County schools, Tiffany said the Southside Parent Club helps make ends meet. This year the club paid for half of the Physical Education teacher’s salary. Southside’s budget is further bolstered by a $125,000 endowment – the largest in the county – that was set up for long-term funding projects two years ago, Tiffany said.
Food is another factor that may contribute to Southside’s academic success, Food Services Manager Susanne Guthrie said. Last year Guthrie began stocking the school’s cafeteria with healthier food, including a host of organic produce donated by Earthbound Farm and Pride of San Juan. Food, she said, can really make a difference.
“It really gets the brain going,” she said.
The ambiance of the school’s setting may also be factor, Johnson said. The school is surrounded by walnut orchards on three sides. Although the setting is aesthetically pleasing, Johnson said it does have some drawbacks. During harvest season, machines shake the base of the trees to collect the walnuts.
“We call that our earthquake drill,” Johnson said.
Twenty minutes later Johnson is at the front of the school’s student- and parent-filled cafeteria handing out the stickers along with Southside School wristbands to reward students who made the first quarter honor roll.
And there are a lot of honor students at Southside.
Brett Rowland covers education for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 330 or br******@fr***********.com.
