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.

Columbia Public Schools Block Twitter Use

KBIA | By Laurel Critchfield

Published October 22, 2015 at 8:20 AM CDT

As of Monday, Columbia Public Schools students were no longer able to access Twitter at school through the district Wi-Fi.

“It came to our attention that there were a couple of things coming through on Twitter that we didn’t want coming through,” CPS spokesperson Michelle Baumstark said. “So we have temporarily included Twitter in our filter so that it cannot be accessed.”

Teachers commonly use Twitter as a part of their curriculum, which is why the site wasn’t blocked like Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites.

Baumstark says the instructional technology staff is speaking with teachers about what they need when it comes to Twitter. She says the district plans on adjusting the filter to suit those needs.

The filter that the district uses can filter certain types of content, as well as filter by grade level. Baumstark says the district may decide to use either of those functions when making exceptions to the Twitter ban.