Columbia Public Schools to hold meeting on addressing attendance areas for new elementary school

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Columbia Public Schools Long-Range Facilities Planning Committee is set to hold a meeting Wednesday to discuss attendance areas, as they are planning to build a new elementary school in South Columbia.

The meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. at the Aslin Administration Building on W. Worley St. Those who attend will get insight on the timeline of the process.

Before the meeting, the Board of Education held a series of focus groups with parents, guardians and employees to get a better idea of how to compare and evaluate areas to adjust to the growing district on Tuesday.

Focus groups will continue Wednesday with input from community members, from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. through 2:00 p.m..

According to a letter from the district, the focus groups touched upon topics like concerns over the process of creating attendance areas, school utiliziation, diversity and proximity.

The board has a set of principles to help discuss and identify changes that need to be made in existing attendance areas.

Those include acknowledging that attendance areas change and will continue to change, looking to the future growth of neighborhoods and creating communities. Time spent on student travel and transfer policies allowing 5th graders to remain that their school and policies allowing siblings to also remain there are also considered when discussing attendance areas.

In 2023, Columbia Public Schools began the process of making these adjustments for the addition of the new elementary school.