Silay South Elementary School is nestled on a 30, 000-square –meter lot along Rizal Street, Silay City. Gabaldon Building dominates the campus with the most number of classrooms housed in one building. It was from the persistent efforts of Don Emilio Gaston, the town president and his vice-president Atty. Roque Hofelina who donated the 4-hectare lot school site that made possible the organization
of Silay South Elementary School. An academic building – Gabaldon Building was constructed in 1919 consisting of 20 rooms and a Home Economics to accommodate 23 teachers handling 60 pupils each from Grade I to IV and 52 pupils per class in the intermediate grades. That was eighty-one years ago! Eighty-one years, hence 20 buildings were added to its 2 original buildings with a constructed covered walk. Its 23 teachers have increased to 80 and 3, 012 pupils with their vibrant voices now reverberating its hallways. In the later part of the 90’s, a strong typhoon swept through the city and totally wrecked the facade of the building. It destroyed its roofing and walls, leaving five classrooms along the faced beyond repair. Books and classroom devices were soaked and damaged and were no longer usable. Hence, the five classrooms were reconstructed using concrete materials. Since then, only minor repairs on the building have been made. Classroom teachers with their homeroom PTA make annual minor repairs on classroom floorings that have obviously served their purpose through the years. Since its construction, columns and floor beams of the said building have not been replaced or repaired. But in 2009 it was rehabilitated under the Principal-Led Construction Program of the DepEd. Thousands of children benefited by this building. Its repair makes learning even more enjoyable for these young learners. The school has a total of three thousand twelve pupils (3,012) who are under the instruction of eighty (80) teachers of whom 69 are classroom advisers and eleven (11) are relief teachers. Eighty-one years, hence, countless graduates of Silay South Elementary have made illustrious names for themselves and for their community leadership. The honor graduates of the school have unfailingly through the years, maintained their scholastic standing in high school and even in college. They have always been regarded as a fierce force to reckon with by competitors for scholastic honors. They have always been chosen to lead, to take over, to take up the cudgels for any worthy cause. That is just how the children of this school are regarded. Eighty-one years, hence, Silay South Elementary School has carved a highly respected niche among other institutions. Eighty-one years after that one sunny afternoon in 1934, she still continues fielding young men and women into life’s battlefield armed with steadfast values and a steely determination not to fail. Her sons and daughters are all these because Silay South Elementary School is this – rooted in a glorious past, well-founded by a strong administrative and teaching staff, visionary and aspiring for all who pass through her care, her heart and her soul.
