Fairly soon, De Soto High School will see a boom in student enrollment. In order to accommodate a student size of about 1,200 students, there must be additions to the school in the form of Phase 3. Phase 3 will add new classrooms toward the east side of the building, as well as a new library- however the original blueprints from 2009 needed to be revised.

“The plan they had didn’t really meet the needs of the size of school that we’re going to have to be,” said physics teacher Ben Cook.

In order to create a plan that met the needs of what the administration believes De Soto will become, teachers met with as a department with an architect that took them through the previous blueprint. From there, the architects changed different parts of the plan to accommodate their feedback.

After the plan was amended, Principal Dustin Mortenson brought them to the School Board and went through all changes step by step. Additionally, representatives of each department went to the same meeting and fielded questions on the changes made to the plan.

“Initially it was kind of awkward,” Tim Mispagel said. Mispagel was the representative of the art department.

As an example to these changes, the original plan included a two-story library with 12-foot ceilings and large windows, much like the current windows in the senior hallway. However, the amended plan includes a smaller library, but more classrooms.

Unfortunately these changes caused a change in the price of the expansion, which may affect the School Board’s decision on which parts of the plan to include.

“There’s a definite monetary difference between the two plans,” Cook said.

Although the changes brought about by the teachers are to their benefit, there is a large difference in the two plans presented to the school board.

“They have the final decision,” Principal Dustin Mortenson said.