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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 school board considers start times

school bus
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The Columbia Public Schools Board of Education is considering making changes to school start times next year. This idea is currently being discussed among the school board with multiple proposals.

School board member Christine King says the idea to change start times came about by not only looking at a sleep study, but also looking at the bus routes and figuring out a way to transport students together with their appropriate age groups: “Our community told us, they don’t like it when grades six, seven, eight and up share a bus," says King. "Because right now you could have a kid that goes to Smithtcon, a kid that goes to West and a kid that goes to Hickman all on the same bus and that doesn’t really work very well.”

The proposals suggest three different bus time schedules for the different grade levels, meaning each level would have a different start time. School board member Jonathan Sessions agrees with King and says it is important to hear feedback from the community: “I don’t know what folks are going to do and what works best for everyone, and that’s why we’re asking the question.”

The school board will discuss the proposals on December 10th but they will not be voted on until February.

Janet Saidi is a producer and professor at KBIA and the Missouri School of Journalism.