Month: September 2026

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

No injuries were reported, but an adult and two children were displaced by a fire at a Jefferson City duplex on Tuesday afternoon.

A press release from the Jefferson City Fire Department says crews were called at 2:46 p.m. to the 1000 block of Elizabeth Street. The fire was found in the kitchen and firefighters had it under control within 10 minutes, the release says.

JCFD said the fire was accidental. The American Red Cross is helping the family with temporary housing, the release says.

Fourteen firefighters responded to the scene.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia Public Schools leadership said Tuesday that “appropriate consequences will be administered” to students who were caught with guns at two district high schools this month.

However, more details about the students and their motivations are unlikely to be made public, the district says, citing student privacy laws.

CPS is investigating after a gun was detected in a student’s backpack at Hickman High School on Monday. It was the second gun found on district property in less than two weeks.

CPS said the school’s weapons detection system detected the firearm as the student tried to enter the building Monday. The gun was confiscated, and the student was taken into custody by the school resource officer. The student’s name and age have not been released.

The Hickman incident happened 12 days after a gun was found inside a locked area of a student’s vehicle at Rock Bridge High School on Sept. 16.

The incident is under investigation, and a threat assessment is underway, according to a letter Superintendent Jeff Klein sent to Hickman families. Klein said school administrators, safety and security staff and the school resource officer “acted immediately” and that the detection system and staff “did exactly what they were supposed to do to keep our school safe.”

In a letter to Rock Bridge families, Klein said the gun found there was not used in a threatening manner and no threat of violence was made in connection with that incident.

An incident report states the student could have run afoul of two criminal statutes — unlawful use of a weapon and juvenile delinquency.

CPS policy says students who have a gun on school property or at a school activity can face a suspension of at least one calendar year or expulsion. The superintendent can modify that consequence on a case-by-case basis.

CPS spokeswoman Michelle Baumstark wrote in response to emailed questions that “appropriate consequences will be administered.”

She said the district followed its policies when handling these cases.

John McDonald with the Center for Educational Safety — part of the Missouri School Boards’ Association — said some students bring guns to school because “they think it’s cool.” He was speaking generally and did not say that was the reason in either CPS case.

“The challenge is figuring out what the intent was,” McDonald said. “So that often requires a threat assessment. Sometimes you never get to the intent. Other times you do.”

McDonald said he considered CPS’s same-day communication with families “really impressive,” while noting parents want information as quickly as possible. He said officials sometimes need time to determine what happened and whether there is a threat.

“Sometimes it takes five hours to get it right, and we’d rather get it right,” McDonald said.

McDonald said districts should explain what they can share with families, even when some details must remain private.

“Being transparent is absolutely essential because it keeps the trust,” McDonald said.

A student was also found with a gun at a public school in Cole County on Monday. The sheriff’s office said a student unintentionally left an unloaded gun in a locked car after hunting the day before.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Columbia Public Schools argues in a new lawsuit that the Missouri State Board of Education violated state law in its approval of a Frontier Schools charter school in April.

In the lawsuit filed Tuesday, CPS asks the court to throw out the vote and Frontier’s license to operate in Boone County.

The city argues that Frontier failed to notify CPS of the charter school’s plans ahead of its submission to the new school’s sponsor, St. Louis University, and failed to submit its application as being sponsored by SLU to the state Board of Education on time.

CPS also claims the state board did not review applications from Frontier or SLU and instead watched a presentation by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on how Frontier meets state qualifications, which CPS alleges has several factual errors, including that Frontier inaccurately fulfilled application requirements.

“Because they’ve met all the requirements which we have said they’re required to meet, we have no other option but to support this,” Board Member Brooke Smelser said during the meeting, according to court documents.

CPS also argued that an improper vote was used to approve the Frontier school, with the board using a general “All those in favor?” vote instead of an individual roll call. The board also later inaccurately posted in meeting minutes that the vote was unanimous.

According to prior reporting, Democrat Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge voted against the application.

“They [Board of Education] abdicated their role in reviewing and properly vetting the application and instead delegated that to DESE, which is a violation of state statute,” Waters said.

The Missouri Board of Education has been notified of CPS’ second lawsuit.

Columbia Public Schools was also back in court Tuesday for a hearing in the months-long battle over rules on charter school eligibility.

The fight centers on Senate Bill 727. Passed in 2024, it states that charter schools can operate in counties “between 150,000 and 200,000 inhabitants.” While the bill does not name Boone County, it is the only county in the state that fits this description.

During Tuesday’s arguments, the state argued that Boone County is a good candidate for the public school for several reasons including the the population guidelines. Additionally, there is a large population in the area to staff the school, well-educated parents who are more likely to express an interest in additional school choice and the presence of a doctoral research university.

“Boone County’s unique achievement gaps, its high proportion of college-educated adults, andthe presence of the University of Missouri’s flagship campus. These all make BooneCounty unique as compared to other counties,” the state said in court documents.

They added that counties with populations larger than 200,000 like St. Louis County or Jackson and Clay County already have a variety of public and private schools.

“St. Louis County has both twenty-four separate public-school districts and the highest concentration of private schools in the State, making it reasonably unlikely that charter schools could reach any level of sustained success,” the state said in court documents.

CPS argued the law is unreasonable because charter schools affect individual school districts, not entire counties. They also questioned why the state’s law only focused on population size and not better signifiers like accreditation score or district need. The district also argued that Frontier School’s charter would not address the achievement gap the state cited as a reason for the law.

While Boone County has the largest achievement gap in the state, Frontier would operate within CPS, which has the state’s second-highest accreditation score at about 89%. Sturgeon, meanwhile, has the lowest accreditation score at about 60%, but a relatively small achievement gap.

Additionally, Boone County school districts range in population from 18,000 to 300 students, with some schools being staffed with out-of-county residents, calling into question the importance of a specific population.

CPS also argued that parent education and the presence of higher education should not be a factor in providing school choice options.

“It was somewhat offensive to say that only parents that are educated care about their own child’s education; I think all parents care about their own child’s education,” Columbia Board of Education Vice President Suzette Waters said. “Mizzou is not a charter sponsor right now, so Frontier had to look to St. Louis for a sponsor; the arguments the state was trying to make that there’s interest, somehow the presence of Mizzou is somehow a favorable for a charter, just didn’t make sense.”

CPS also argues the requirements are arbitrary because SB 727 only adds the population threshold to state law, not the additional higher education-related criteria or an achievement-gap threshold to target.

CPS adds that even if those criteria are considered, other counties meet them but were left out of the law. Greene County, for example, has a similar achievement gap of about 17%. However, it has around 300,000 people and hosts Missouri State University, which is not an R-1 doctoral research school like MU.

Phelps County also qualifies in all areas except in population. The county has around 45,000 people according to the U.S. Census and features the Missouri University of Science and Technology, which is an R-1.

Judge Emily Fretwell took arguments into consideration and set a deadline for optional post-hearing briefs for two weeks.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

A Columbia man was seriously injured in a crash on Tuesday morning on Route B, just south of Route HH in Boone County, according to a crash report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol.

The 23-year-old man rode his 2026 Kawasaki Ninja southbound and rear-ended a stopped 2019 Tesla Model S that was driven by a 77-year-old Columbia woman, the report says.

The motorcycle overturned and the man fell off the bike, the report says. Both vehicles had moderate damage.

The man was brought to University Hospital by ambulance. He wore a helmet and the woman wore a seatbelt, according to the crash report.

MSHP reports do not state the names of those involved in crashes.