The De Soto School District plans to make some big changes over the next two school years.
According to Phase 1 of the district’s strategic plan, which will begin at the start of next school year, sixth graders will be moved from the elementary schools to De Soto Junior High School.
Also as part of Phase 1, the program that serves students who receive special education for higher needs will be moved from the Annex to the De Soto High School basement. The Annex is housed in a building on Third Street.
In addition, the program for at-risk students who receive instruction at the Innovative Learning Center (ILC), the district’s alternative school, will be relocated from the former Junior High School Library to the High School basement.
Superintendent Ron Farrow said the Annex and the ILC programs will be in separate spaces in the high school basement.
“They both will have their own exterior entrances, so they will still be very much separated from other student groups,” he said. “But having them in basically side-by-side locations with the ILC administrator and counselor offices in between, they’ll be able to add support to both programs.”
Farrow said the ILC has its own administrator and counselor, while the Annex has a director.
Phase 2
The second phase of the strategic plan is expected to be implemented at the start of the 2026-2027 school year and calls for the elementary school buildings to be realigned and made into grade-level centers.
Currently, Athena and Vineland elementary schools enroll students in kindergarten through sixth grade, but under Phase 2, Athena will serve students in kindergarten through second grade and Vineland will serve third through fifth grade students.
Phase 2 also includes plans to open an Early Childhood Center satellite at Athena Elementary.
Farrow said the plan was unveiled at a community meeting on Jan. 23.
“Before we had our community presentation, we actually sent out a communication to all our community members/parents that we were going to have this community meeting,” he said Monday. “In that message, we sent out our one-page flyers that talked about each phase and what would be happening because we wanted people to know before the community meeting exactly what we were talking about.”
Farrow said about 60 parents and staff members attended the meeting. After the meeting, the district sent out information with a link that explains the plan. To see the plan go to desoto.k12.mo.us and scroll to the District Strategic Plan.
“It has frequently asked questions listed there that we continuously update,” he said. “We sent out a survey to all of our families regarding this change to gather more feedback and more questions and concerns to ensure that we’re collaborating together to make this as effective as possible.”
Plan offers savings, other benefits
Farrow said the phases are being implemented to save money, enhance collaboration among educators and strengthen the learning experience for students.
He said the district has been looking for ways to avoid deficit spending as enrollment and revenue continue to decline.
“(We looked) at the ways that we can tackle this while still protecting those valuable supports and resources for our students and staff,” Farrow said. “It’s not an easy task, but I think these two phases really allow us to make some needed changes toward the budget while doing just that.”
Typically, Farrow said, 80 percent of a budget is salaries and benefits, so the main cost savings from the strategic plan will come from “consolidation and efficiency of staff.
“By making these changes, we’re able to consolidate our staff and our resources and just be more efficient, or in other words, just be able to do more with less.”
He said student-teacher ratios will be easier to manage with grade-level centers.
“For example, with two elementary buildings, we may have classes that are approaching a certain number. Maybe we’re getting up to 18 or 19 students in our kindergarten and first grade and we would like to reduce (class size) a bit, but if we add a teacher at Athena where we only have three or four teachers in that grade level, then you’re really reducing your number lower than it needs to be. You can have class sizes then at the 13 or 14 level, which is where we’re at in some of our classes.
“(At Vineland), you might have classes at 16-17 or 15-16 students per class level. When you combine those buildings, now you’re taking all of your students and you’re spreading them out amongst eight or 10 teachers, so you get rid of that volatility of having a teacher added and then taken away for numbers … By doing that, we’re able to reduce, at a minimum, one teacher per grade level in Phase 2, and more than likely, two teachers per grade level in our upper elementary grade levels, which really consolidates our staffing.”
Farrow said district officials are committed to reducing staff solely through resignations and retirements.
“If we have a third grade teacher who is retiring, and we know we can reduce (a teacher position) in third grade, we will not repost that position,” he said. “It takes longer to (reduce staff through attrition), which is one reason why we are starting this now, in order to give ourselves enough time with our reserves to be able to do this through attrition. But it does play out faster than you would think. We are currently estimating probably a reduction of just under 10 teachers or 10 staff members this year based on retirements and transfer-outs and those types of things.”
Farrow said the sixth grade classrooms will fit in the junior high building, adding that the change provides additional opportunities for sixth graders in electives, athletics and extracurricular activities, including band.
After students are relocated from the current ILC area, that space will be repurposed.
Once students are moved out of the Annex, the district won’t need the building on Third Street anymore, Farrow said.
“The district would look at selling the property as a reduction once the Annex is moved to the new location … But more importantly, it allows us to add supports to our Annex by having the ILC administrator and ILC counselor provide supports to the Annex like there are now at the ILC.”
When the Annex director retires in the future, that position will not be filled, Farrow added.
Adding the Early Childhood Center satellite at Athena was briefly considered for Phase 1, but it is now part of Phase 2 of the strategic plan, Farrow said.
“We know that is a huge need for that community,” he said. “We have many families out in the Athena area that are unable to take advantage of our current ECC offerings because it is in town (on Rock Road).”
Currently, Farrow said, the district has 700 students at Vineland, about 400 students at Athena and about 300 at the Junior High, and the planned changes will balance those numbers.
He believes transportation will be the biggest issue for the district when implementing the two phases, which is why district officials are planning months in advance.
“Our goal is to improve transportation routes through this process and certainly not make any of them worse,” he said.
Farrow said feedback about the planned changes has been positive so far, but he knows change is hard.
“It’s a lot of change but logistically and logically it makes sense,” he said. “It’s good for the district and good for the kids.”