With decreased enrollment and a related $738,000 drop in state funding this school year, De Soto School District officials have been looking for ways to cuts costs, including possibly eliminating some teaching jobs.
School officials discussed potential cost-cutting measures at a regular school board meeting on Jan. 16 and a special board meeting on Jan. 20.
Administrators had floated the idea of eliminating three or four teaching positions through attrition. Currently, the district has 198 current teachers, Superintendent Josh Isaacson said.
If implemented, the proposal would cut two teaching jobs at Athena Elementary, one at De Soto Junior High and possibly one at De Soto High School, administrators said.
No votes were taken, but board members directed administrators to take teacher cuts off the table, at least for a year, and pursue other ways to address the district’s declining funding, like dipping into district reserve funds
“I feel better,” said Bev Wilson, one of the board members who oppose reducing teaching jobs. “I think (not dropping teaching positions) is something that will give teachers a boost.”
Wilson and fellow board members Tarrole Milfeld and Pam Midgett said they were worried that reducing the number of district teachers would increase class size for the remaining teachers.
Wilson and Milfeld said they were particularly concerned about cutting teachers when the district is trying to improve scores on the annual Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) test, which have been below the state average.
MAP scores for the 2018-2019 school year, which were just released this school year, had De Soto with the lowest MAP English test score among county districts for the second year in a row.
De Soto also had the second-lowest math test score among county districts this year.
And, De Soto was one of only two county school districts to score below the state average in both English and math in the state’s Annual Performance Report (APR). Grandview R-5 was the other.
De Soto’s English score of 333.6 on the APR (on a 500-point scale) was below the state average of 341.2. In math,
De Soto’s APR score of 310.7 fell below the state average of 313.6.
Wilson and Milfeld said the district recently changed its curriculum, and they hope the district’s test scores will improve as a result. However, they said it probably would be harder to raise those scores if class sizes increase due to the loss of teaching positions.
Board member Mark Ferrell agreed.
“We need to maintain the status quo this year,” he said.
Superintendent Josh Isaacson said the district’s declining enrollment was no surprise and school officials have been preparing for the decrease in state funding stemming from the lower number of students.
Enrollment decreased from 2,882 in the 2010-2011 school year to 2,576 this school year. By the 2022-2023 school year, enrollment is projected to fall to 2,476, Isaacson said.
He said state funding decreased from $13,299,345 last school year to $12,561,126 this school year.
Isaacson said the district currently has about $8 million in reserves, which is about 24.4 percent of the district’s $32,919,784 overall budget. He said that percentage has steadily risen over the past few years, and the district can afford to dip into the reserves, at least for a while.
He indicated that while using reserve funds is an option now, it is not a long-term solution.
So, Isaacson said, the district needs to take additional steps, like reducing teaching positions through attrition, to help address the district’s declining funding.
“Making tough decisions today affords us more flexibility in the future,” Isaacson said.
Jeff Russell, the board president, stressed that nothing has been finalized.
“I think we’re still in a situation of trying to decide,” Russell said.