The Adel-DeSoto-Minburn School District’s Master Planning Committee finished their final document which identified a big need. 

Superintendent Greg Dufoe says that this committee was put together to pinpoint what are the needs of the existing attendance center buildings and their growth while also managing the buildings that are not attendance centers. Dufoe notes that the committee was composed of Board-approved community members, teachers, administrators, city mayors and school board members. Dufoe explains that the biggest takeaway from the document was the need for a new high school building. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio why that was identified as a need. 

“(The) Current high school was built in 1986, and it also shares that campus with the seventh and eighth grade middle school. So by virtue of our growth, that campus is getting tight. So we looked at others, we looked at all kinds of scenarios, including having the high school stay on that campus and moving the middle school students out. But after looking at the programming needs, especially 40 years after that high school was built, it was determined that a new high school is the best option.”

Dufoe says in this plan the fifth and sixth grade students would move to the high school and the DeSoto Intermediate building would become a preschool. He adds they are still in the beginning stages and have not purchased land, but that will be part of their process in the next few months.