In an effort to reach its district goals, focusing on the future and continuing to provide high-quality instruction to its students, the DeSoto Independent School District applied and has been awarded two grants totaling more than $175,000.
“Two of our largest goals as a school district are to ensure the safety and security of our students and continually increase academic achievement and student outcomes for all students,” said Ben Mackey, DeSoto ISD’s Chief of Research, Evaluation, and Design. “Both of these grants directly align with what we’re trying to accomplish as a district.”
DeSoto ISD has been named a recipient of the 2019-2021 School Safety and Securities grant by the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the highly-competitive Educate Texas System-Wide Planning grant. “The Safety and Security grant helps us increase the safety measures to ensure the safety of every student,” said Mackey. “And the Educate Texas grant helps us review, revise, and revamp our STEM learning to push for better outcomes for students across our system.”
The Safety and Security grant is valued at $152,666. The funds from this grant would provide an opportunity to install high-quality cameras and radio systems across the district’s campuses and bus systems. More specifically, the district plans to increase security measures at the entrance of each campus by adding these cameras.
Further focusing on its goals of increasing educational opportunities for students, DeSoto ISD has accepted the Educate Texas System Planning grant valued at $25,000. The purpose of this grant is to allow DeSoto ISD the option to explore innovative practices through visiting conferences and sites across this country at no cost to the district, and then identifying what system elements to bring to DeSoto ISD to fundamentally change the school experience for students in a positive way. One major goal would be to strengthen DeSoto ISD STEM classes and increase student achievement in such classes.
The district plans to begin work utilizing these grants in the immediate future. In fact, work has already begun with security enhancements at most campuses. The DeSoto ISD plans to complete the security work before the start of the 2020-2021 school year.