CPS continues to look at increasing daily attendance, follow school improvement plan

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A week from Tuesday is the first day of class for Columbia Public Schools, and district leaders have designed a plan to improve the needs of the district.

The plan aims to make improvements in three particular areas, including growth, innovation and achievement. Progress toward the improvements will start this school year, but the plan looks ahead to the 2026-27 school year.

Columbia Public Schools Superintendent Brian Yearwood told ABC 17 News that the need for growth comes after the COVID-19 pandemic caused attendance rates to decrease in the district.

"So 70% of all scholars attended school 90% of the time, and we're working with our chief equity officer, Mrs. London was taking on that initiative with a team," Yearwood said. "And this year, we ended at about 80%. So again, we're seeing a climb in attendance, but it's not near to where we want to be."

Yearwood noted the district is looking for this number to improve to at least 95%, and that the plan outlines this should occur by the start of the 2026-27 school year. Based on the current trajectory, Yearwood said he's confident this will happen.

The plan outlines that attendance rates will increase by 5% each year, beginning this year.

A few ways this will occur is by having principals and teacher create attendance plans, increasing the amount of home-school visits and having principals in elementary schools recognize students with good attendance. The plan also states that principals will send letters to families when students miss more than five days of school.

The growth portion of the plan also looks at increasing the percent of students who graduate within four years to 92% by the 2026-27 school year.

Data shows that only 35% of students were advanced on the Measures of Academic Progress test in 2022. This is a slight increase from 2021, when that number was 31%. Due to this poor percentage, the district is aiming to increase this percentage by 3% each year by looking deeper into the operations of classrooms.

"I think this year, there will be a slight increase in our math scores," Yearwood said. "Because we're looking at hiring more instructional coaches, and being more targeted with our lesson planning, and looking at more things like 'What does rigor look like in that classroom environment,' providing additional training for teachers as well as support."

Scores for communication arts decreased last year, moving from 44% to 43%.

The plan also looks into increasing the number of students who take college-level courses by 10% by the 2026-27 school year. Yearwood said the district is working with the company Equal Opportunity Schools to try to encourage more students in the district to take these classes.

The amount of out of school suspensions continue to rise across the district. Despite this, Yearwood said that only 5% of the population contributes to this.

"There are close to 80% of scholars that have never been referred to the office for any reason for any discipline infraction," Yearwood said. "But again, that small number, that small population is contributing to a lot of those issues that we have, and we plan to deal with that."

The plan is to have the number of suspensions decreased by 50% by 2026 .

Yearwood said this will be done by using a behavioral educational plan for the first time this school year.

He also noted that in trying to see these improvements, having patience is the key.

"And we know that, as we put these initiatives in place, typically, initiatives take three to five years before we actually see the benefits of them," Yearwood said. "So, you know, we're not in the sprint, we're in the marathon. But in the meantime, we're hoping to see that all scholars are thriving in the areas of math in particular, and then trying to get students into more AP-level classes and things like that. There's also a part of the plan."