Columbia schools begin push toward new school year

COLUMBIA — It’s Monday afternoon, and Judy Brown is scrambling. Less than 24 hours remain before her students walk through her door at Rock Bridge Elementary School and she, like most of her co-workers and other educators across Columbia, isn’t quite ready. But she will be; these frantic back-to-school moments are an annual tradition. Teachers and staff truck through meetings and fill their shelves with books. They tack up construction paper and wear out their staplers. This is the hard part.