The number of incoming eighth graders brings one of the largest student body increases Ladue High School has ever experienced. The current ninth grade enrollment is 336 students with the incoming eighth graders having 387 students enrolled. Principal Brad Griffith has the task of organizing the facilities for this new, larger, student body. 

“Right about this time of year, after students sign up for their classes, we take in [their] course requests to then give us a theoretical breakdown of how many classes and teachers we are going to need,” Griffith said.

The school requires a certain amount of full time educators in order to populate students requested classes. Ladue operates on a different system for student class requests compared to other schools. 

“We have what’s called the student driven master schedule,” Griffith said. “[The way it works is] our students select the courses, and then we come up with the staffing that goes along with that.”

This way of scheduling allows for the students to be enrolled in the classes they want. However, this does bring some limitations, specifically when it comes to hiring new teachers. 

“[We] look at [requests] longer term and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to need an English teacher,’” Griffith said. “That’s what we did this school year. We looked at all of [the requests] and said, ‘We need an English teacher.’ So the district granted us a new FTE”

The hiring of new teachers brings the need for new educational spaces. 

“We are going to take a portion of the English and Social Studies office and convert that to a classroom,” Griffith said. “Then we’re going to take a portion of the math and science office and convert that to a classroom. We are adding two classrooms with the idea of the increased need for instructional spaces.”

Along with the need for more educational spaces, many of the afterschool activities will see an increase in students as well. 

“We’ve added additional soccer teams [in the past],” Griffith said. “And I think when you look at sports that are more popular, if we have two levels, we could look at adding a third”

This increasing population does not appear to be slowing. With overall population increasing, along with new real estate being built in the surrounding area, Ladue’s student body is only expected to increase. 

“A lot of the trends are based upon how real estate and how neighbors are shifting,” Griffith said. There is this new property in what used to be Bayer. There is potential growth there. [And] the new condo, over on Olive. Those are the kinds of things that you look at with enrollment as well.”

The increasing Ladue student body brings more than just a few complication. 

“If you’re a larger school, that’s successful academically and that’s successful athletically, there’s a bit more positive attention on you,” Griffith said.

In tandem with more attention, a larger student body can light up a school.

“It is never dull at Ladue High School,” Griffith said. “I don’t think any of us, administratively or teacher wise, would want things to be dull. So when you have a big student population, it’s exciting.”