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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 re-examines school start times

Chris Belcher, superintendent of Columbia schools
KBIA
Chris Belcher, superintendent of Columbia schools

Columbia Public School administrators looked at the amount of sleep kids receive Wednesday night at the World Café Community Conversation, and focused discussion on school bus routes.

About two hundred parents, teachers, and committee members talked about changing Columbia’s school bus routes from a two-tiered system to a three-tiered system.

But adding a new tier of school bus routes would mean schools’ start times would have to change as well.

Superintendent Chris Belcher says that’s one of the questions up for discussion.

“So, we’re saying, should we start elementary first?" Belcher said. "Would they be earlier?  Should we start high schools later? Now’s the time to discuss it.  Very few schools have done that.”

Columbia high schools start first, followed by middle schools and then elementary schools. Columbia public schools spokesperson Michelle Baumstark, says research that shows middle and high school students might benefit from a later start time.

"There’s a lot of research out there that suggests that adolescents need more sleep and that starting later would be better for them," Baumstark said. "But that’s all up for discussion. I mean, currently that’s not the configuration we have for start times for our students, and so parents could decide that they prefer the way it is now, or they could decide that they would like to see there be a later start for high schools.”

Notes from the World Café discussion will be made available online within the next ten days.

The transportation committee will use the notes to develop a recommendation to present to the school board.

Bridgit Bowden is a senior at MU studying Convergence Journalism and Spanish. She works as a reporter, producer, and editor at KBIA.