Ladue School Community Gathers In Creve Coeur To Celebrate Education Foundation's Success

Take your passion for Proposition 1 and pour it into the Ladue Education Foundation. 

That was a message imparted to an audience of community stakeholders at the Foundation's annual lunch event, held at the district's West campus in Creve Coeur, formerly home to Westminster Christian Academy.

Check out a Facebook Photo Gallery From The Event

The event Wednesday marked an opportunity for the foundation to highlight recent success stories, including a pilot program that brought Mandarin language instruction to elementary school students at Reed School that will now be expanded to Old Bonhomme and other elementary schools.

The Ladue Horton Watkins High School Robotics team was on hand to demonstrate its prowess. The team at the high school level was funded in partnership with the Foundation, Monsanto and the Ladue Horton Watkins High School Parent Asociation.

Because of Proposition 1, the April ballot question voters passed in April to boost the district's operating tax levy by $.49, Superintendent Dr. Marsha Chappelow told the audience "we are financially better off than we were lastyear and better off than had we not passed" the levy.

In her "state of the district" address, Dr. Chappelow touched on efforts which will now turn to updating Ladue's facilities master plan, which will mean upgrades at many schools, including the high school, to keep up with an curriculum which will be offered.

That master plan also calls for a new Spoede Elementary School.

Dr. Chappelow also pointed to the efforts at work now to get the West Ladue campus ready to function as a fifth grade center next fall.

The event's keynote speaker was KMOV-TV anchor and reporter Jasmine Huda, a 1997 graduate of Horton Watkins High School. 

Huda talked about how she started in the district in Fourth Grade at Conway Elementary after attending the Rossman School in Creve Coeur. A questionnaire prior to a Ladue Middle School field trip in 8th Grade revealed her interest in journalism, which took her to the University of Michigan, National Public Radio and later KSDK-TV, before moving to KMOV.