New report highlights poverty’s effects on Boone County children

Boone County and the city of Columbia are using a new report to highlight how poverty is affecting the community, with a particular focus on children.

The report, called “A Focus on Poverty,” highlights drop-out rates in Columbia Public Schools and how those rates are affected by poverty.

“Concentrated poverty is keeping Boone County from reaching its potential,” the authors of the report wrote. It outlines four areas where “poverty is experienced in multiple forms:” education, housing, jobs and health.

About 2.7 percent of CPS students dropped out last year, but 6.2 percent of black students dropped out compared to 1.9 percent of white students. A higher proportion of black children in Boone County are also mired in poverty.

CPS spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark said you can’t pinpoint one reason for the disparity.

“It’s definitely an area we are focusing on as a school district, we want all of our students to be succeeding at high levels,” Baumstark said. “It’s really something we continue to drill into as a district, it’s one of our focuses is to improve academic achievement for all of our student populations, but in particular looking at our black students.”

“I would never say that our work is done or that we are satisfied with a particular number, but I do think that we’ve done a lot of things in our school district to keep that number low,” Baumstark said.

The report also says educational disparities can affect parents’ ability to support their children’s education.

Boone County Community Services Director Kelly Wallis presented the report to the county commission Friday afternoon.

“A lot of kids are entering kindergarten not at the same levels as their peers if they’re growing up in poverty or they’re experiencing trauma in their early years.” Wallis said. “So our best opportunity is to intervene in those early years and provide families the support that they need so their children will have the same opportunities as other children.”

Wallis said the department is asking for proposals from organizations working on issues dealing with poverty. The county’s Community Services Department awards grants to community-service organizations.

“We need our community organizations and our community entities to support us in those endeavors,” Baumstark said. “We only have our students for a small percentage of the time, the rest of the time they’re out in the community so we need those support things in place so students can get to school, they have the nutrition that they need, the social and emotional supports that they need, so they can focus on learning when they are at school.”