Meeting set for Tuesday to help with Hannibal schools’ transition from five elementary schools to four

HANNIBAL, Mo. — Several more rungs are left to climb on the redistricting ladder, but Hannibal Superintendent Susan Johnson and her district transition team will take another step up that ladder on Tuesday.

Johnson and about two dozen others — multiple staff members at each elementary school, as well as parents and others involved in the redistricting process — will meet at 3:45 p.m. that day at the district board office to generate conversation about the things for which the district needs to be proactive.

“(Those things include) making sure that we’re attending to the needs of our staff, our students, our families and anything else that we need to be attending to with the change of going from five elementary schools to four,” Johnson said.

With the closure of Eugene Field Elementary beginning with the 2025-26 school year, the Hannibal School District will have four elementary schools next year. This meeting will help the district answer the burning questions that those who will be affected by redistricting may have.

“I know there is a lot of anxiety for a lot of reasons, but especially if you just look at the Eugene Field staff, you’d want to know where you’re going to teach next year. Of course anyone would want to know that,” Johnson said. “The more we can help answer some of those questions they have, hopefully that will help them feel more comfortable in making that transition a little bit more smooth for them.”

Johnson announced the scheduled meeting at Wednesday’s school board meeting at the Hannibal Middle School auditorium. In organizing the district transition team, Johnson emphasized the need for including stakeholders who will bring different viewpoints and experiences to the table.

“What I presented to the board tonight had different things that myself and the central office staff generated, but (the members of the district transition team are) going to have a different lens that they’re looking through, a different perspective,” Johnson said. “I’m quite certain that they’ll have ideas and thoughts of things that I haven’t had. They need to have ownership in that, too.

“I really look at this as an opportunity for us to be collaborative, to be comprehensive in making sure that we’re taking into consideration the needs from all those different stakeholders.”

Johnson said the ideas that come out of these meetings will help the district make the students and staff who will have to adjust to a new school feel included.

“What you have to keep in mind is with some of our redistricting, it’s not just Eugene Field students,” Johnson said. “We did some addjusting to boundaries, so it could be that we have some students attending one of the other elementary schools who will be going to a different one. There’s not a huge number, but anyone who comes to a new building, you want them to feel welcomed and feel part of that community. I think they’ll have great ideas on how we can do that. That buy-in is really important.”

Johnson met with the principals from each of the district’s elementary schools on Dec. 19 to better grasp how each school will be affected.

“We talked about how many students (will be affected) and the demographics of those students,” Johnson said. “For example, how many of their students have an IEP? How many kindergarterners are there for next year? How many first graders, second graders, so on and so forth? Most importantly, with knowing those numbers per grade level, how many sections (classrooms) do we need? That would determine how many staff members we need. 

“For example, if Mark Twain Elementary has three first-grade teachers this year, but next year with re-districting, say they need four, then we know we’re going to need an additional first-grade teacher. That’s important for a lot of reasons, but most importantly, we have Eugene Field staff who we want to plug into some of those places. We want to make sure we’re plugging them into places where they want to be, where they’re certified to be, where they have experience and can gain some value there.”

Johnson and her transition team will inform families of what they can expect for the 2025-26 school year no later than March 14.