WATCH: Full interview with Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Brian Yearwood

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Brian Yearwood says he looks forward to the 2024-25 school year.

The district is focusing on implementing a new cellphone policy across schools along with safety and having a strong connection with students and families.

Erika McGuire: Thank you for joining us this morning. My first question for you is, what is the top priority for the district this year?

Brian Yearwood: Well, again, thank you for having me on, it's going to be a very exciting school year. We are looking forward to another great school year in Columbia Public Schools, and a top priority is to build stronger connections with our students, with our scholars, with our families and our community. You know, we are seeing great things happening, and we want to continue, we want to continue to strengthen those connections. So that is going to be huge for us this coming school year.

McGuire: All right, thank you. And now I know the district is implementing a new cellphone policy. Now, what determined the difference in policies for middle schools compared to high schools, since their policies are different?

Yearwood: Yes, absolutely. So you know, we had cellphone policies already in place for middle and high schools and the policies that exist, we looked at them, and we decided it was time to improve them, and also to improve the procedures regarding how we manage cellphone usages on campuses. So at the middle school, all scholars will not be allowed to use their phones during the day. It's totally out during the school day. At the high school, on the other hand, our scholars will be allowed to use their cellphones. Will not be allowed to use their cellphones during class or during learning times. You know, we want the focus to be on education, and we are making attempts to remove as many distractions as possible. So we're saying for high schoolers during that learning time, during that class time, all cellphones should be put up.

McGuire: Okay, thank you. And what is safety looking like ahead of the school year, and how many schools are going to have resource officers in place and buildings every single day?

Yearwood: Yes. So we have our resource officers throughout. We have local district-wide SROs, and right now at the four high schools, we will have SROs in place. So we want to make sure that safety continues to be of a No. 1 priority. So we'll have two at Battle High School. We'll have one at Rock Bridge. We'll have one at Hickman High School this coming school year. So again, continuing that process. And remember, these SROs are not just there in a disciplinary action, they're there in a sort of building community. They're there to, you know, have dialog to interact with our scholars. They're there to, you know, have what you call stronger connections with scholars and be able to have that dialog with them. So again, it's not just policing in terms of, you know, discipline or anything that may come into play, but it's mainly to do more community, building stronger connections with those scholars.

And again, as you talk about safety and security, we have different layers of protection that do exist. As you know, we have our weapons detection systems. We're implementing these systems at three comprehensive high schools -- Battle, Hickman, Rock Bridge, and we've been talking about this for the past year. We're now moving forward with actual implementation. The touchless system automatically screens individuals with backpacks and bags for potential threats and other prohibited items. Also, all scholars and all visitors will be subject to screening as they enter campuses. This is during the regular school hours. And if any prohibited items are found, a secondary search of course will be will be conducted. In addition, any contraband found will be confiscated so and may result in disciplinary action or legal consequences. So right now, we have information going out to families. We have schools providing more information on their website. So that is something new.

In addition to that, we also have a new visitor management system. And this is huge. This is going district-wide in all buildings, starting this year. This type of system is actually used in districts throughout our country, and the electronic system, for the most part, replaces the paper sign-in method that's historically been used for tracking who can access the building, who enters the building during the day and when visitors are in the building. So very quickly, this system requires all visitors to scan their state-issued IDs to gain entrance. Visitors are expected to receive a visitor's tag that they can wear as a guest in the building, and if a visitor does not have a state-issued ID, then the information can be entered manually by the school. Very importantly, the system that this new visitor system actually checks against the sex offender registry, as well as checking against any custody or trespassing limit, limitations. Our goal there, you know, we say, well, why are we doing all this? Well, our goal is to welcome our guests while also promoting safety and security of our scholars or teachers and the staff. So those visiting our buildings this year will need to bring identification with them. It's going to be very important, and the system will be in place during school hours. So again, quite a bit going on in safety and security this coming school year.

McGuire: I'm sure a lot of parents will be happy to hear about that. And now this is my last question for you. Is there anything else parents need to know ahead of the 2024 25 school year?

Yearwood: Yes, we have all back-to-school events that are happening right now. We have schedules for middle and high school students being that were released [last week]. Elementary teacher assignments will be available. Back-to-school open houses. Registration has been going on for the last month. We're still continuing to register so it's done online through our family portal transportation. We want to let parents know that this is a time that they need to opt in for as they register their scholars for the new year to determine the need for transportation and to be eligible, the rules are that you must reside outside of one mile of the school for elementary and outside of two miles for the high school. This actually exceeds what's required by the district by state law, but the district feels, you know, we feel that it's an invaluable support for all families. Remember, transportation is an opt-in, so parents have to actually say they want transportation before the first day of school, so we can plan accordingly.

We ask for patience the first few days of school as we navigate bus transportation. You know, Columbia, 300 square miles, very large system with many riders, different needs will get better as of course, the routes are finalized. We're looking, STA [Student Transportation of America], they're looking for bus drivers. If anyone out there wants to come join and help us with transportation, there's a pool, and we definitely want to hire more bus drivers overall.

We're in a good place as far as staffing buildings and our teachers. We are getting better and stronger. This time last year we had more openings than we have now, and we are very excited about that is because of our recruitment efforts, because of all our retention efforts. So you can say we are fully staffed for our classrooms this year. And that is very, very exciting. First day of school is on Tuesday, August, 20, we will welcome our sixth through ninth-grade students back for a Jump Start Day on Monday, August, 19, that's sixth through ninth grade. That's very, very important.

Also, I want to say attendance. Parents, please encourage your scholars to be at school on time. We did some research with our data, and it shows that our scholars that are here in attendance 90% of the time are three times more successful in their academics. So please work with us to make sure that things like appointments and other things that require a scholar to be off away from school, that, again, we do most of that after school. Of course, we know that they're extenuating circumstances, but we encourage our parents to just work with us so that we can drive attendance up, because we want their scholars in school with us, so that the learning, the accomplishments, the success of their scholars, can be three times greater. Like the research is showing us, we are improving our attendance. It is looking better. But again, it's important that we continue to strengthen and get better in that arena, because that will lead to better achievement. So parents, we want to connect with you, scholars, we want to connect with you. We want to build stronger relations. And above all, we are very excited about the upcoming school year.

McGuire: Alrighty. Thank you so much. And I know you wanted to make a comment about health, so you can take this time right now to do that, if you would like.

Yearwood: Sure, sure. Well, I want to say thank you to all the concerns and the well wishes, and I'm doing well. I'm doing well, and I look forward to a spectacular school year. This is going to be the best one ever. So thank you for all that, all the concerns, and all the well with it's going to be great. Thank you.