Rock Bridge High School is a public high school located in southern Columbia, Missouri. The school serves grades 9 through 12, and is a part of the Columbia Public Schools.HistoryDue to the increasing population of Columbia in the 70's, and the crowding of David H. Hickman High School towards the end of the 1960s, the Columbia Board of Education decided to form a new high school. The board bought 42acre of land in Southern Columbia and started the construction of the new high school. The name Rock Bridge was chosen because of the schools proximity to the natural rock bridge of Rock Bridge State Park. Construction started in 1972 on the original portion of the building, consisting of 18 classrooms and one office area in the present-day east wing of the building. Many of these classrooms were connected by motorized folding walls, many of which are still operational and in use. The design of the original portion and its three planned additions, of which two were completed, won a national award in school design. The school was planned to open in 1971, but funding issues pushed back construction of the second phase of the building. As such, this original portion sat unused for a year or two while the second portion was not yet complete.Construction started on the second portion in early 1972, which added the "Main Commons", another office area, the library, the gymnasium, and a few specialty classrooms underneath that area. In September 1973, with the completion of the second portion, Rock Bridge was considered "complete enough" to open and had a class of 583 students, mostly sophomores and juniors. This high school was the second centrally air conditioned school built in Columbia, MO, after Oakland Junior High School north of town. In 1974, the planetarium was completed with a capacity of nearly 90 people and featuring a state-of-the-art star ball and a full-dome projection system It is now room 303. In 1979, the west wing opened, which was basically a mirror image of the original 1971 building but with a finished basement. The west wing featured about ten general-purpose classrooms, as well as science, art, and band rooms, providing the school with a then-total of about 40 classrooms. A lift (elevator) provides access to the basement area, to keep the facility handicap-accessible. A north wing similar in design to the east and west wings was proposed but never came to fruition, citing slower growth during the 1980s than planned.