Education

Keep up with Columbia public schools

Below the overview of the district are links to KBIA's coverage of Columbia 93 district schools, updated as more stories are published. Columbia 93 at a glanceThe Columbia 93 school district currently includes 32 different schools. In 2014, the district had a k-12 enrollment of 17,204 students, which is 2% of the total k-12 enrollment for the state. Enrollment has been slightly increasing in recent years, 2% since 2011. While a small percent, that amounts to almost 400 more students. There have also been major re-drawing of attendance areas with the addition of Battle High School. Middle school attendance areas shape high school boundaries 00000178-cc7d-da8b-a77d-ec7d2f9e0000The changes have affected all schools in the district, including causing high school attendance to increase and overcrowding at one middle school at least.

Rock Bridge, Hickman attendance improves year after Battle

KBIA | By Gabriel Jefferson

Published October 28, 2014 at 2:19 PM CDT

In the coming weeks, KBIA will be reporting on what effect the addition of Battle High School and the restructuring of middle schools have had on Columbia Public Schools overall. If you have any questions or comments please tweet us at @CoMoExp or comment below.

Since Battle High School started in Fall 2013, Rock Bridge High School’s official enrollment has increased but Hickman High School’s has decreased. As far as demographics Hickman has seen a drop in black students and a rise in white students. Rock Bridge has basically stayed the same.

The attendance rate of these schools has gone up significantly as well. Michelle Baumstark, Director of Columbia Public Schools, said there are a couple of factors that have helped increase attendance rates.

Buamstark said, “One is providing educational opportunities for students, improved messaging to parents in regards to attendance to make sure they get there kids to school… and the new late start to high school is possibly a contributing factor”.

Educational opportunities include dual enrollment and online courses at all 3 major high schools. The new schedule was implemented in Fall 2013. The old high school schedule started at either 7:45 or 7:50 a.m., ending at 2:45 or 3 p.m. Now they start at 8:55 a.m. and end at 4:05 p.m.

Baumstark said, “The next goal is to match that with achievement”.

These high schools seem to have at least taken a step in that direction. The composite ACT Scores for Rock Bridge and Hickman have risen by a couple points. Battle has an average 32 on the ACT, but that is because there were only 2 graduates at Battle. One took the ACT and received a 32.