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    We warmly welcome you to South Middle School, where our motto is:   Strong Community = Success for All.  We are educators - that’s what we do.  That is WHAT we do.  Specifically, we educate students in grades 6-8.  We teach them history, science, math, reading, writing, music, art, cooking, sewing, engineering, business, world languages, physical education, health, social skills and more!   We do this by HOW we show up for work each day - by how we work together and how we treat one another.   That’s HOW we do what we do.  

    We do our work at South Middle in order to accomplish the mission of the Parkway School District - to ensure all students are capable, curious, caring and confident learners who understand and respond to the challenges of an ever-changing world.  We do this work because it strengthens communities.  We do this work because strong communities are the key to success for ALL.  That’s WHY we do what we do.

    The story of our school community began in August of 1963.  Carved out of cornfields,  it was the second junior high school built in Parkway and handled the population for the whole south and west areas of the district.  The original 453 students of Parkway South Junior lived through some of the most notable events in our nation’s history.  Just weeks after the FIRST first day of school, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech; a speech of unity and hope – a message that would surely have been on the minds of South Junior community members at the time.  Then, the week before the first Thanksgiving break at the new school, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.  

    Over its first five years, South Junior’s enrollment nearly tripled, ballooning from 453 to 1,349 by 1968.  Covering the entire southern and western parts of the district boundaries, the attendance area became too large for the building to accommodate.  With the building bursting at the seams, students began attending school at different times in an effort to alleviate the overcrowding.  South area students attended from 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and west area students attended from 11a.m. to 4:30 p.m  This continued until the opening of West Junior in 1971.  

    Today, approximately 600 students attend South Middle.  Students come to us in sixth grade from Barretts, Carman Trails, Hanna Woods, and Pierremont elementary schools and move on to South High or West High after eighth grade.    

    South Middle Trivia:

    • South Junior/Middle has had ten principals in its history.
      • Edwin Edmunds: 1963-1964
      • Tracy Brown: 1964-1980
      • Don Senti: 1980-1984
      • Harrell Stark: 1984-1987
      • Vicki Francis: 1987-1990
      • James Cockrell: 1990-1994
      • Rhonda Coleman: 1994-2002
      • Craig Fenner: 2002-2015
      • Amy Branson: 2015-2020
      • Toby McQuerrey:  2020-Present
    • There is an old cemetery (Bacon-DeFoe) at the western end of the campus.   William Bacon and many of his family members are buried there.  The earliest known burial there is 1829 and the most recent is 1896.