ATHENA ELEM.

As a medium-sized elementary-level community in DESOTO, Missouri, ATHENA ELEM. caters to 465 students from grades K through 6, overseen by DESOTO 73. That puts it 48% larger than the typical public school in Missouri, which averages around 315 students.

Within DESOTO 73, which oversees 5 schools and 2,464 students, ATHENA ELEM. is one campus in the system.

In terms of who attends, ATHENA ELEM. logs that the student body is overwhelmingly White (92%). Other groups include 5% multiracial, 2% Hispanic. Compared to Jefferson County overall, the school's racial mix sits in roughly the same range.

In terms of school funding signals, Staff filings list 46 full-time-equivalent teachers, which works out to roughly 10.1:1 students per teacher. The state averages around 12.4:1, so this campus is tighter than the state norm typical. About 50% of enrolled students meet the income threshold for free or reduced-price lunch, a number frequently used as a low-income enrollment indicator. By comparison, Jefferson County runs at roughly 38%, so the school's eligibility rate is meaningfully above the surrounding baseline.

Adjusting for the school's free-and-reduced-lunch share, ATHENA ELEM. performs roughly as the BeatsExpectations model predicts for a school with this FRL share. The predicted value is around 50.3%, the actual is 42.3%, a residual of -8.0 points.

In the area at large, community-level numbers for Jefferson County indicate median household income runs about $82,851, 25% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, and the poverty rate sits near 6%. ATHENA ELEM. is one of 69 public schools in Jefferson County (combined enrollment of about 36,216 students).

The closest other public school is DESOTO JR. HIGH, roughly 5.0 miles away. 8 of the 8 nearest public schools sit inside a ten-mile radius, suggesting a relatively low-density school footprint. Among the 6 schools in that immediate cluster with test data (this one included), ATHENA ELEM. ranks 5th on composite proficiency, below the local average of 55.4%.

ATHENA ELEM. operates from a low-density location.

Five-year trend. Looking back 7 years, enrollment at ATHENA ELEM. has ticked down 15%, going from 544 students in 2018 to 465 in 2025. Class-load math has fell: from 12.5:1 in 2018 to 10.1:1 in 2025.

On this page, the feed for ATHENA ELEM. typically covers enrollment questions, classroom assignments, and PTA news. Members of the school community can share what they know.