Chalkbeat

Jeffco voters will consider $133 million in tax increases to raise teacher pay, repair schools

2026-08-21T21:48:23+00:00

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Jefferson County voters will decide in November whether to approve $133 million in tax increases to boost teacher salaries, fund more career and technical education classes, repair school buildings, and improve security systems.

The Jeffco school board voted unanimously Thursday to put two measures on the Nov. 3 ballot.

If passed, the measures would increase property taxes by about $42 per year on every $100,000 of a home’s value, according to a district spokesperson. For a $650,000 home, that would amount to $273 per year.

The measures are called mill levy overrides, and they come at a crucial time for 74,000-student Jeffco Public Schools. Declining enrollment and other factors mean Colorado’s second-largest school district is facing a continued budget deficit. If the overrides fail, district leaders said it’s likely Jeffco will have to close more schools, lay off staff, or freeze salaries.

“If these measures don’t pass, we could find ourselves having to make additional reductions, and that could mean more hardships for our staff, our families, and our school communities,” board member Denine Echevarria said.

Measure 5A is a $73 million mill levy override to increase pay for teachers, principals, and school support staff, as well as fund more career and technical education classes for students.

A district presentation said $15 million would be used to fund already-promised pay increases, and $39.5 million could be used for future salary boosts. More than $10 million would be spent on career and technical education, and more than $8.5 million would go to the district’s charter schools. State law requires districts to share mill levy override funding with charter schools.

Measure 5B is a $60 million mill levy override to fund building maintenance projects, including repair parking lots, replace leaky roofs, and fix heating and cooling systems. It would also pay to replace aging technology and improve school security systems. About $7 million of the $60 million would go to Jeffco charter schools.

Board members acknowledged Thursday that the district faces several hurdles to passing the measures, including skepticism about how it spent the money from the last voter-approved tax increase and an aging population without ties to public schools. Only 26% of Jefferson County households have children, according to the United States Census Bureau.

The last time Jeffco voters approved a mill levy override was in 2018 for $33 million. In 2016, voters rejected both a mill levy override and a bond measure.

“It is reasonable to have questions, pain points, or skepticism based on past district decisions and performance,” board Vice President Erin Kenworthy said. “Ask the tough questions, be curious — and I’m going to ask you to support this investment in Jeffco’s future.”

Students urged the board Thursday to put the measures on the ballot.

“Today was my first day of my junior year, and I already realized that my class sizes were immensely larger,” said Kris Clark, a Chatfield High School junior. “I had 31 students in all three of my classes, and we had to add desks. It was extremely uncomfortable in my physics class because of the lack of space for proper learning and movement.”

Lucia Rubino, a junior at Lakewood High, said families face higher activities fees this year.

“While $100 or $200 might be manageable for one family, it might be the only reason another student can’t participate,” Rubino said.

Gavin Vahle, a senior at Dakota Ridge High, said rigorous and relevant career and technical education classes are important, and students “want learning that gives us more reasons to actually be excited about coming to school.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Prop NN proponents believe the time is right to raise funding for schools after failed efforts

2026-07-17T23:37:33+00:00

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This time will be different.

At least that’s the hope of supporters of Proposition NN, a ballot measure to raise funding for schools. They launched a statewide “yes” campaign on Friday to raise support for the measure.

The November ballot measure represents the fifth attempt in the last decade to ask Colorado voters to make tax changes that would raise more money for public education, among other things. Each of the three previous ballot measures were defeated. Another proposed measure in 2022 never made the ballot.

The revenue from Prop NN would be used to increase teacher salaries, reduce class sizes, and invest in career and technical education. Extra revenue would also be used for other state spending.

More than 100 supporters, who gathered in front of the castle-like West High School near downtown Denver, said they believe Coloradans have finally grown tired of underfunded schools. In recent years, lawmakers have wrangled steep budgetary cuts but continued investments in public education. However, state studies show Colorado needs billions more to adequately fund its schools.

Joshua Duran, a shop teacher at Denver’s Skinner Middle School, said teachers across the state face hardships that he believes voters will find sympathetic. He works about 16 to 20 hours a week driving an Uber to supplement his teaching salary. He also works with his father in the summer installing custom cabinetry and remodeling bathrooms.

That has meant long hours away from his family. The stress sometimes makes it difficult to do his best for his students, he said. The money from Prop NN would help pay his salary, but also go toward bettering instruction and resources in schools, he said.

“I just feel like the mood is different this time,” he said. “We’ve been trying forever, but I think that the time is right.”

Kevin Vick, president of the Colorado Education Association, the largest teachers union in the state, said their polling shows there’s support statewide to raise money for education.

Other issues facing schools include high teacher turnover, teacher wages that aren’t competitive enough, and large class sizes, he said.

“We think voters see that this is needed and it’s time,” Vick said.

The union planned the measure, which lawmakers put on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Prop NN asks voters to allow the state for 10 years to keep some or all of the revenue that would otherwise be refunded under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or TABOR, which caps government spending.

A state legislative analysis shows the measure could raise billions more for schools.

Like previous ballot initiatives, the measure faces opposition from many conservative leaders, some who have said the measure represents a hit to Coloradans’ wallet. And conservative groups, such as the Independence Institute, have called the measure a de facto tax increase because it cuts TABOR refunds.

The measure is projected to reduce the TABOR refund of a taxpayer who makes $100,000 a year in 2027 by $28, or $56 for a joint filer, according to a draft legislative council ballot measure explainer.

Parents and school board members at the Yes for Colorado Kids rally on Friday said they’ll work hard to help voters understand why Prop NN is needed, despite losing some of their TABOR refunds.

Jeffco Public Schools parent Jen Wilson said she wants voters to know that her PTA has raised thousands a year to support her kids’ schools with classroom supplies and other materials. But next year, the schools still are scaling back mental health resources for kids, she said.

“We had a shooting at our Evergreen High School last year,” she said. “I feel like if we had more mental health support and more adults in the schools, we wouldn’t be missing these things.”

And Morgan County School Board President Nancy Hooper said she and others are committed to getting out the word about why this is needed for every school in the state.

“We desperately need money and resources to take care of our students,” she said. “They deserve it.”

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado 2026 legislative roundup: The preschool, K-12, and higher education bills that passed and failed

2026-05-14T20:10:30+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers avoided cuts to the core of public education funding this legislative session despite facing a significant budget shortfall. But with more financial challenges likely in the years ahead, it’s now on voters to decide whether public schools deserve more dollars than the status quo.

A November ballot measure referred by lawmakers in Senate Bill 135 will ask voters if the state can keep part of their tax refund to fund K-12 schools. The state could also spend the extra money on key services such as healthcare and higher education.

Colorado lawmakers avoid big cuts to public education

Lawmakers referred the ballot measure to voters after a second year of needing to cut more than $1.2 billion from the state budget. That made it difficult to approve bills that required state spending. Despite the fiscal constraints, lawmakers did approve numerous education-related bills during the 120 day session. Many bills still require the governor’s signature.

Among them is a new law to allow colleges and K-12 schools to request someone’s guns be temporarily confiscated, a new bilingualism endorsement for high school graduates, and a bill to create a new Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development.

Legislators also approved a bill to allow the Colorado Department of Education to begin hearing 504 plan violations after parents complained that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ process has lagged under the second Trump administration.

Lawmakers also passed another bill regarding the state’s ability to hear civil rights issues in schools, although the bill was significantly scaled back.

House Bill 1141 will expand educational discrimination definitions, such as making pregnancy or being a parent protected statuses. The bill also encourages but doesn’t require the state’s Civil Rights Division to hear school discrimination complaints.

Here’s a roundup of other education bills that passed and failed this legislative session, which ended Wednesday.

The education legislation approved

How do the state’s most effecitve schools help students succeed? That’s the question Senate Bill 170 will require a task force to explore and report back on by next year. The bill was sponsored by Senate President James Coleman after pushback on an “education deserts” bill that would have allowed the state to authorize charter schools in communities with low-performing schools and without local school board agreement.

House and Senate lawmakers approved two somewhat similar bills that would require social media companies to acknowledge a law enforcement warrant and give them a time period to comply. Lawmakers introduced the bills after two students were wounded in a shooting at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County. The shooter, a 16-year-old student who took his own life, had made suspicious social media posts before the shooting.

Senate Bill 11 requires social media companies to acknowledge a warrant within eight hours but gives them 72 hours to comply. The more strict Senate Bill 1255, which Gov. Jared Polis has threatened to veto, also requires social media companies to acknowledge a search warrant within eight hours, but gives an operator only 24 hours to comply under certain conditions.

As part of the budget process, lawmakers filed the state’s School Finance Act in January, which was much earlier than in past years. Senate Bill 23 sets district and state funding levels at $10.2 billion in the 2026-27 school year. Two amendments added to the bill late in the legislative session will dramatically curtail the power of Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, also called BOCES, to authorize bricks and mortar schools or homeschool enrichment programs outside their member school districts.

The powerful Joint Budget Committee also filed House Bill 1428 to require the Colorado Department of Education to provide a variety of information on publicly funded online learning and enrichment programming by Nov. 1.

Due to budgetary constraints, lawmakers decided to phase out a program that extends high school so students can earn college credits toward a teaching degree. House Bill 1357 would allow one more group of high school students to enroll before it ends.

And Colorado lawmakers cut back on how often school districts must administer the state’s Colorado Measures of Academic Success social studies test. Starting next year, only 7th graders will take it, per House Bill 1353.

House Bill 80 creates a Cradle to Career grant program within the Colorado Department of Human Services that would provide educational, extracurricular and social services support to children in poverty. The bill does not provide state funding for the grants. Instead, their availability will depend on charitable contributions from private groups, the federal government, or local governments.

Teachers won’t have to disclose misdemeanor convictions that occurred in the last seven years if they don’t involve a student or at-risk adult under House Bill 1090.

Lawmakers also approved Senate Bill 103 requiring districts to share information on how they help at-risk students in their schools.

Districts will also have an updated process to involve charter schools in local construction ballot measures after the passage of Senate Bill 145.

House Bill 1004 extends an existing tax credit for contributions to child care facilities for 10 more years. The law provides a tax credit of 50% of the value of the donation, up to $100,000.

Municipalities could designate a roadway next to a school as a “school street” that’s closed to traffic or where the speed limit is 10 miles per hour under House Bill 1318, which was inspired by a Littleton middle schooler who was fatally hit by a car while biking to school.

Employees of Colorado’s facility schools, which serve some of the state’s most vulnerable students with the highest needs, will be able to get pension benefits through the state’s Public Employees Retirement Association under House Bill 1146.

Teachers will no longer have to create individualized readiness plans for kindergarten students who score proficiently on readiness tests under House Bill 1050. Instead, the plans will be optional. The bill also requires the state to publicly report kindergarten readiness test scores disaggregated by school district, school, gender, race, and more.

Colorado lawmakers revamped the state’s higher education funding formula in House Bill 1345. The bill received pushback from private colleges after lawmakers cut $14.1 million from private student aid. Private college leaders said the cut, meant to be in effect for just one year, could open the door to a permanent loss of that funding.

Colorado students taking college classes while in high school have only been able to take classes at four-year universities if they take the classes on the college campus. House Bill 1078 would allow high school students to take college-level courses offsite.

Federal cuts have left universities that enroll high percentages of students of color without federal grant funding to support students. House Bill 1006 doesn’t include funding. But lawmakers hope that designating certain colleges as “thriving institutions” will show students of color that those campuses are a welcoming place.

Most Colorado universities will now need to stock abortion medication at on-site health clinics under House Bill 1335, which received final approval on the last day of session.

House Bill 1142 gives civil immunity to board members, staff members, and volunteers at child advocacy groups if these individuals acted reasonably and in good faith in disclosing information about a child or during investigations of child maltreatment.

Education bills that didn’t move forward

Senate Bill 68, designed to study how to reduce CMAS testing time, failed to advance.

After facing concerns from Polis, lawmakers decided to indefinitely postpone House Bill 1292, which would have required Colorado to place nondiscrimination rules on its use of a federal education tax credit program.

Senate Bill 180 would have created a new investment authority that could seek higher returns on certain pots of state money than what state investments typically produce. Tens of millions of dollars from the higher yield investments would have been earmarked to help low-income families pay for childcare. But the bill faced opposition from Colorado’s state treasurer and other groups who said it was risky and possibly violated the state constitution.

Lawmakers decided not to pursue the Building Excellent Teacher and Employee Residences Program in House Bill 139. The $40 million pot of money would have provided financial assistance to districts for workforce housing projects.

Lawmakers rejected a bill that would have raised money for public schools by subjecting microtransactions in online games to a 5% fee. House Bill 1148 was a wide-ranging bill aimed at enhancing data privacy for children on gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft. But lawmakers did pass a similar bill, House Bill 1418, that will put the proceeds of the 5% fee toward youth mental health services.

Colorado lawmakers rejected an attempt to change how school board members are elected. Instead of electing school board members at large, Senate Bill 57 would have restricted the pool of voters to those who live in the neighborhoods that the candidate would represent, similar to how Colorado elects its state representatives and congresspeople.

A bill aimed at saving Colorado families money on back-to-school supplies failed to advance. House Bill 1048 would have made children’s clothing and school supplies exempt from the state’s 2.9% sales tax for one weekend in July. A similar bill also failed to advance in 2024.

Lawmakers shelved Senate Bill 166, which would have disqualified candidates from running for school board if they had a recent conviction for certain violent crimes or felony drug offenses.

Colorado lawmakers rejected a bill to cut back on teacher evaluations. House Bill 1291 would have allowed teachers who are rated effective and who have Colorado’s version of tenure to be evaluated every three years instead of annually.

A Denver lawmaker hoped to replicate a city program that gives students a free pass to recreational, museum, and cultural facilities. But House Bill 1055 didn’t advance. The bill, backed by Colorado students, would have allowed for the pilot program to give My Colorado Cards to grades 6-12 students in a limited number of communities.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Denver superintendent: More school closures could be necessary before moratorium is up

2026-05-13T15:51:16+00:00

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After 65 slides that showed how Denver Public Schools could face budget deficits in the years to come, the school board president asked the superintendent to give it to her straight.

Would DPS need to close more schools, she asked at a meeting last week? And when?

The answer was yes. And possibly soon. After closing or shrinking 10 schools last year due to declining enrollment, the board put a four-year moratorium on school closures. But the moratorium had an out: If enrollment or funding shifted substantially, the superintendent could recommend closures before the four years were up.

Superintendent Alex Marrero said that will likely happen.

“We will not exhaust the moratorium,” he said on Thursday. “I can’t say it will be next year. I have good confidence that it could be the following year. Surely the year after that.”

Enrollment in DPS is shrinking, driven largely by lower birth rates and high housing prices that push families out of the city. Fewer students means less per-pupil state funding. And less funding means the district will face tough decisions on how to balance its budget.

Officials had estimated that last year’s school closures would save the district $6.6 million.

The board is set to vote next month on a proposed $1.49 billion budget for the next school year. It’s balanced, but a five-year forecast shows a cumulative $28 million deficit if the district were to take no action to address it — a scenario that Marrero and other officials said is unlikely to happen, in part because DPS could ask voters this fall for a tax increase.

Still, some board members seemed worried.

“We know this is coming,” board member Amy Klein Molk said to Marrero at the meeting. “What are we doing today to get us ready for the future?”

Among other strategies, Marrero pointed to administrative cuts as a way to reduce expenses. The district laid off the equivalent of about 61 full-time central office employees this spring, according to a presentation given to the board. It also added 12 employees, resulting in a net savings of $8.1 million. Coupled with 38 central office layoffs last year, the district has cut $12.7 million from its headquarters in the past two years, the presentation says.

But Marrero said there’s not much more to cut.

“We’re long gone from the days of being a bloated central office,” he said, “and now what we’re balancing is some requests from schools for support. The more that we trim, the more likely that we’re going to get yearnings from school sites saying, ‘Hey, we’re not getting support.’”

The district also faces increasing costs, officials said. Two of the biggest are rising prices for electricity, water, and natural gas and an increasing need for special education services.

Although DPS’ total enrollment was down 1,200 students this year from last year, the number of students who require special education services increased by 1.5%, according to the presentation. Over the past six years, the district has added 25 more programs for students with disabilities — which DPS calls “center programs” — at an average cost of $232,000 per classroom.

DPS will add another nine center programs next year, said Katie Hechavarria, the district’s executive director of finance. Much of the need is for programs that serve students with autism.

The district has also had to hire more paraprofessionals to work with students with disabilities, officials said. While the number of teachers in DPS decreased by 2% over the past six years and the number of central office staff and administrators decreased by 6%, the number of paraprofessionals increased by 28%, according to the presentation.

Next year’s proposed budget includes $29.1 million for 613 “dedicated adult supports,” which are paraprofessionals that work one-on-one or in small groups with students with disabilities.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Regis University officials sound the alarm on Colorado budget that ‘punishes’ private college students

2026-05-11T23:17:07+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers are pausing $14.1 million in state funding that flows to private colleges and universities through grants, work study, and graduate student aid, affecting about 2,000 students.

The cut is one of many lawmakers made this year to pare back about $1.2 billion from the state’s budget, which faces increasing Medicaid costs and other pressures. While lawmakers aimed to preserve the core of public education funding, they cut some programs like the private college student state aid and an extended high school program for aspiring teachers.

Rep. Rick Taggart, a Grand Junction Republican who sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, said the cut to private university and college student aid was one of many difficult decisions lawmakers needed to make to balance the budget. The JBC redirected the money to help fund public universities and colleges.

He added that students who choose a private university still have the ability to access the Colorado Opportunity Fund, which provides a stipend to eligible Colorado undergraduate students to attend public and private colleges.

“It’s not as if the state is leaving our students that have made the decision to go to a private school high and dry,” he said.

However, Colorado private university and college officials worry the one-time cut, which will take effect in the 2027-28 year, will cause students to rethink their decision to attend school this fall. They also fear additional actions by lawmakers last week will open up the possibility of permanent cuts in future years.

Nine Colorado private colleges and universities will be affected. Regis University, a Denver private Jesuit Catholic university, expects the largest cuts with 587 students losing about $5.5 million in state aid.

Kristine Bureau, the school’s vice president of admissions, financial aid, athletics, and university marketing, said in a statement that these are Colorado students whose families are taxpayers in the state. Lower-income students and those who are the first in their family to go to college will be the most affected, Regis officials said.

“Denying them access to aid that their own tax dollars support, aid that every other Colorado student retains, is a policy that punishes students for choosing private higher education,” she said. “Colorado’s workforce and communities will feel that loss.”

Lawmakers also amended a bill last week to revamp the state’s higher education funding formula to reflect the cut made in the 2027-28 budget, a move that Bureau said provides “a gateway for the state to make this permanent.”

Taggart said he understands Regis’ concerns that this could become a permanent cut and cannot guarantee that lawmakers next year will decide to keep the funding in the budget. Lawmakers expect more budget challenges next year.

“We deliberately, as a JBC, did it for one year to enable us to look at our budget for next year and see where we stand,” he said.

Numbers compiled by Regis officials show about 465 students at Colorado Christian University will lose about $3.5 million in grants, work study, and graduate student aid.

Another about 500 University of Denver students will lose about $3.2 million in aid. In a statement, University of Denver spokesperson Jason Gruenauer said the cut negatively affects students’ ability to attend the college of their choice.

And about 120 Colorado College students receiving over $400,000 in aid would be affected by the cut. The college’s leadership said in a statement that this decision hurts students who have the hardest time getting to college and state-based aid shouldn’t steer them toward one type of institution or another.

Regis University officials said they don’t plan any cuts to services, but they will evaluate how to fill the gap in student funding.

Private university endowments might be able to cover student aid for students in the short term, officials said. But that’s not a guarantee.

This story has been updated to include a statement from Colorado College leadership.

Gov. Polis says federal tax-credit program won’t violate Colorado anti-discrimination laws

2026-05-09T01:10:42+00:00

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Gov. Jared Polis said Friday that Colorado’s participation in a new federal tax-credit scholarship program won’t run afoul of state anti-discrimination laws because the program relies on private donations rather than public funding.

The federal program provides $1,700 in annual tax credits for donations made to scholarship-granting organizations for various educational services, such as private school tuition, tutoring, and after-school programs. Last week, several Democratic Colorado lawmakers decided to shelve a bill that would have required organizations to abide by state anti-discrimination laws.

The bill concerned Polis, whose office said the governor didn’t want to hamstring the state from bringing in money for education.

On Friday, Polis also said the state shouldn’t determine which organizations are “worthy” of receiving money from the program.

“When you give $100 to any charity, it can be a church, it can be something that discriminates. It can be pro-gay or anti-gay,” said Polis, who is the first openly gay man to be elected governor in the country. ”It doesn’t matter.”

Invest in Education Foundation, which supports the federal tax credit, hosted the event at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, drawing about 150 kids, educators, and parents. Attendees included representatives from Parents Challenge, a Denver-based nonprofit that supports school choice, and Seeds of Hope, a Catholic private school advocacy organization.

Invest in Education invited Polis to talk about his decision to opt Colorado into the federal program, which was approved last year as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act backed by Republicans. For states to benefit from the program, governors must opt in.

Speaking to reporters after the event, Polis tried to draw a line between his support for the federal tax credit and his stance that Colorado’s universal preschool programs cannot discriminate against students. The major difference between the two, he said, is the preschool programs use state dollars, not donations.

The state is currently involved in a U.S. Supreme Court case brought by two Catholic preschools that wanted to participate in the state’s universal preschool program but didn’t want to have to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families.

More than two dozen states have opted into the federal tax-credit program, with most led by Republican governors, according to Ballotpedia. Polis, the first Democratic governor to opt in, said during the event that he doesn’t want Colorado to leave money on the table that could benefit all kids in the state.

If other states don’t opt into the program, he added, then Colorado should “go after their donors.”

Most Democratic governors have taken a wait-and-see approach to understand the program’s rules, which haven’t been finalized, before making a decision.

Democratic governors in New York and North Carolina have said they intend to opt into the program. Meanwhile, Kansas and Kentucky legislators have opted their states into the program, despite their Democratic governors trying to block participation.

“I’m personally excited that Colorado is one of the leading states in helping to build awareness around this exciting opportunity to boost charitable giving to help our kids,” Polis said.

Peter Murphy, who is the vice president of policy at Invest in Education, said the foundation hosted the event to raise awareness about what the law can do for private and public school families, as well as those who home-school.

“Every non-wealthy child in this country is the potential beneficiary,” Murphy said. “And what this law also does is it puts more control of a child’s education in the hands of their parents, including public school parents.”

While Polis has opted Colorado into the program, his term ends in January. The next governor could decide to opt the state out of the program when they take office.

Lawmakers extend teacher preparation program amid pleas from parents and students

2026-04-28T21:32:05+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers plan to allow a last batch of high school seniors to take part in a statewide teacher preparation program before it’s eliminated.

The Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation program, or TREP, allows students to stay enrolled in high school after graduation for up to two years while their school district pays for college classes. Colorado lawmakers on the budget committee decided to eliminate TREP to help balance a 2026-27 state budget that could have a shortfall reaching $1.5 billion.

But amid pleas from parents and students, lawmakers amended House Bill 1357 to allow high school seniors who were set to begin the program this spring to enroll for one year instead of two. The program will end in July 2027.

Parent Stephanie Christian, who rallied a small coalition of parents and students to save the program, thanked state Sens. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat, and Byron Pelton, a Sterling Republican, for the amendment to extend the program.

“While we had hoped for a full pathway allowing these students to complete the program, the one-year extension provides a critical bridge,” Christian said in a text message. “Because of this effort, hundreds of future teachers will still have the opportunity to begin their journey into education, and that impact will be felt in classrooms across Colorado.”

The amendment cleared the House and Senate this week, and the powerful Joint Budget Committee agreed to the plan last week. The bill will now head to the governor’s desk.

The state created TREP in 2021 to help grow the educator workforce. It has a statewide cap of 250 students a year. The program’s elimination will save the state about $3 million a year.

Parents argued that some high school seniors had based many of their financial aid decisions on using the program, which doesn’t allow students to use federal aid. Students also don’t qualify for most scholarships because they’re still considered high school students.

Colorado’s higher education funding formula rewrite takes another shot at putting a focus on students

2026-04-27T23:57:02+00:00

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Five years ago, Colorado lawmakers changed the way the state funds public colleges and universities. Instead of sending money based mostly on enrollment, the plan was to dole out money based on eight metrics that include how well institutions help students stay in school and get to graduation.

But some college leaders say that formula hasn’t worked as intended and instead valued year-over-year funding stability rather than changes that direct money to schools helping more students.

Now, as part of a regular five-year review, state lawmakers are making incremental updates they say will help drive more money to colleges based on how well they educate students. The changes would expand metrics to include whether schools educate more students who enroll part-time or have a greater number of transfers.

Colorado enacted its current iteration of a performance-based funding formula model in the 2021-22 school year. The formula is a set of metrics to direct increases in state funding based on specific, measurable outcomes, including whether a student graduates on time and schools enroll a higher percentage of certain students.

Colorado Commission on Higher Education Chair Jennifer Walmer, whose board crafted recommended updates in House Bill 1345, said she heard many complaints from schools that the formula doesn’t truly reward schools for their student outcomes. But she also said the commission didn’t want to completely reimagine the formula when the state faces budget challenges and the federal government has cut higher education spending.

“I do think that there are mechanisms and flexibilities in the new formula that, with additional resources, could help drive more performance,” Walmer said.

The bill would keep parts of the 2021-22 funding formula intact, including metrics that help determine how much more money schools get for student enrollment, retention, and graduation.

But the proposal would make key additions to the formula in the 2027-28 school year that would better reflect the myriad of ways students interact with schools that weren’t considered in the current funding model.

These include new definitions that better account for transfer students, as well as a provision to ensure part-time students get counted toward funding. Walmer said part-time students make up about half of higher education enrollment statewide.

The proposed formula also creates other levers that lawmakers can use to funnel even more state funding to schools based on their performance on the metrics of student enrollment, retention, and graduation. This means lawmakers would have the ability to reward excellent performance to drive bigger funding changes, Walmer said.

The bill would also alter the name of the formula to “results-informed funding.”

“I do believe that the mechanism changes that we’re making will better serve and better reflect Colorado students,” Walmer said.

The bill has been met with reserved optimism from several higher education leaders.

Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall said he believes the new formula could help solve some of his biggest concerns about how the state distributes money, including how much some schools get in state funding versus others.

Metropolitan State University of Denver President Janine Davidson said the proposed formula updates better account for different types of students, including those that enroll part-time. She said she’s supportive of the changes and hopes lawmakers place a focus on institutions that have been hurt by previous iterations of the funding formula.

She added the state also must boost state funding for higher education institutions. She said a lack of investment in colleges and universities has led to challenges, such as having a group of student advisors at her school that are far smaller than many peer institutions in other states.

“Colorado is not funding higher education,” she said. “And we remain at the bottom.”

House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat sponsoring the bill, said during a committee hearing on the bill last week that she believes the proposed funding formula update will better help the state reward schools for helping students.

But she also agrees lawmakers must adequately fund higher education if the formula is to work as intended.

“I do think that we continue to fall short,” she said.

The bill passed its first hearing in a House Education Committee last week and will next be heard on the House floor. If passed, the Senate would need to approve the bill before sending it to Gov. Jared Polis.

Other sponsors include state Senate President James Coleman, Republican Sen. Cleave Simpson of Alamosa, and Democratic Rep. Eliza Hamrick of Centennial.

Statewide K-12 funding could increase to $10.2 billion under 2026-27 funding bill

2026-04-20T23:30:11+00:00

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After months of waiting, lawmakers began the process on Monday of moving the state’s school funding bill forward. They must pass it before the end of session on May 13.

Senate Bill 23, known as the School Finance Act, preserves the core of statewide education funding and increases state spending as constitutionally mandated. This means districts and the state would spend $10.2 billion on K-12 education, or an estimated $12,314 per student — an increase of $438 per student over this year.

Lawmakers proposed a $46.8 billion budget in the 2026-27 fiscal year after cutting about $1.2 billion to balance the budget, primarily because of increasing costs in programs such as Medicaid. But next year’s budget shortfall could be as high as $1.5 billion.

Lawmakers filed the School Finance Act in the first week of legislative session in January and well ahead of previous years. But the bill shared only a few details about lawmakers’ plans to fund schools. The full particulars didn’t become clear until a legislative analysis released last week and after budget proceedings were underway in the House and Senate.

State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat and chair of the Senate Education Committee, said he and fellow lawmakers wanted to file the bill earlier than usual to encourage conversations about it.

And advocacy organizations and school district officials shared during the committee meeting they had plenty of time to talk with lawmakers about the legislation and their funding.

Jana Schleusner, Douglas County School District’s chief financial officer, said giving feedback on the finance act felt more collaborative than past years.

“School finance is a conversation that happens to districts, rather than with them,” she said. “This year has been different.”

The bill passed unanimously in the Senate Education Committee on Monday and will be heard next in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The bill will need to pass the Senate before getting heard in the House. It will then need the governor’s signature.

The bill follows changes renegotiated last year by House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, to phase in the state’s new school finance formula. The new formula will cost a total of $500 million more a year to implement. Next year, the state will invest 30% of that total, or $150 million, toward fully funding the formula.

Colorado funds education on a per student basis, and the new formula would use a three-year average of the enrollment count next year to determine how much money it puts toward education. That’s a change from a four-year enrollment count in this year’s 2025-26 budget.

The state projects funding about 827,500 students next year, or a decrease of about 14,000 students.

Lawmakers added that they will amend the bill with a new “smoothing factor” to create parameters that ensure districts with declining enrollment don’t see big funding declines and those with enrollment growth can use their most recent enrollment count.

This is an expected change that the Colorado Association of School Executives was tasked with studying since last year’s updates to the 2024 school finance formula.

Colorado schools receive funding from the state and from local taxes.

The state’s share of funding education would increase $214 million next year to $5.6 billion, or a 4% increase over this year. How much counties and local governments would pay would decrease by about half a percent to $4.6 billion

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican and sponsor of the bill, said the state shifted money from the Kids Matter Fund, which lawmakers created last year as a reserve to fend off budget shortfalls.

“That was good news,” said Kirkmeyer, who sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee. “So again, no cuts to K-12 funding. It’s fully funded as required under the law.”

As planned, the state would fully eliminate next year ASCENT, or Accelerating Students through Concurrent Enrollment, a program that high school students could use to stay enrolled in high school while attending college. Lawmakers decided to end the program after studies showed high costs to the state and minimal data about how it helps students.

The state’s 2026-27 budget also phases out the Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation, or TREP, program, which wouldn’t enroll any more students in the fall. The program operates similarly to ASCENT, with the state paying for up to 250 students statewide to stay enrolled in their high school for two years after graduating while they go to college for teaching.

Colorado parents and students rally to save teacher preparation program from proposed budget cuts

2026-04-08T00:20:32+00:00

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When Joana Baldermann learned state lawmakers might phase out the statewide Teacher Recruitment Education and Preparation program, the news prompted a scramble.

Baldermann and her daughter Cailyn Baldermann were banking on the TREP program, as it is known, to pay Cailyn’s tuition at Metropolitan State University of Denver next year. Now, the Baldermanns need to figure out new financial aid options after lawmakers placed the program for aspiring educators on the chopping block because of a massive budget shortfall.

Cailyn Baldermann hoped to use the TREP program next year to help pay for college.

“Since my freshman year, I have been planning extensively around the TREP program as a foundational step toward my future as an elementary teacher,” Cailyn, an Eaglecrest High School senior, wrote in a letter to lawmakers on the state’s House Appropriations Committee. “Much of my college planning was built around the understanding that TREP would provide a strong pathway to pursuing my education.”

Lawmakers on the state’s Joint Budget Committee have tried to preserve core K-12 funding, but described the potential end of TREP as part of the painful cuts needed to address a budget shortfall that could be as high as $1.5 billion.

The proposal has left some families in a similar situation as the Baldermanns, having to consider new ways to pay for college near the end of the school year when some scholarship deadlines have already passed.

Lawmakers created TREP in 2021 to help grow the teaching workforce. The initiative, capped at 250 participants statewide, allows students to stay enrolled in high school after graduation for up to two years while their school district pays for them to take college classes. Eligible students must have completed one year of specialized education coursework in high school to be considered for the program.

TREP participants also aren’t eligible for college financial aid or most scholarships, since they’re still considered high school students.

State lawmakers have filed House Bill 1357 to eliminate the TREP program. Doing so would save the state about $1.6 million next year, according to a legislative analysis. The 220 students currently enrolled in TREP would be allowed to finish out their education through the program. The following year, the state would save about $3 million.

The bill also reduces how much the state pays to districts for a student’s college education per year from $10,721 to $7,104.

State Rep. Emily Sirota, chair of the powerful Joint Budget Committee and a Denver Democrat, said on Tuesday during a House Appropriations Committee hearing that the cut relieves pressure on the state’s education savings, leaving more money available to fund core services.

Some school districts want to figure out how to continue a similar program if TREP ends.

CTE Director Madison Tortessi with Cañon City High School said she wishes lawmakers would let a last round of seniors enroll in TREP, because some of her students don’t know what to do next. The district has sought permission from the state to prop up a P-TECH elementary education pathway, but it will be too late for this year’s seniors.

About 22 schools participate in P-TECH across the state. The program allows schools to partner with businesses and colleges to prepare Colorado students for jobs.

“We’re really hoping that we get approved for this,” Tortessi said. “And then we don’t have to tell kids, ‘No, you can’t do TREP.’ We can say, ‘You can do this instead.’”

Parent Stephanie Christian said the statewide change leaves many high school seniors like her daughter without an option. Christian has led the charge to advocate for the program, and her daughter Abby plans to attend the University of Northern Colorado in the fall.

House and Senate lawmakers will spend the next week debating the recently introduced budget proposal and its companion bills, including the one to eliminate TREP. Some lawmakers might file amendments that would alter the proposal.

Christian hopes lawmakers will allow high school seniors who want to use the program a chance to do so.

“None of those kids have any money to go to college now without this,” she said. “You have hundreds of kids that are six weeks away from graduating.”

Colorado lawmakers avoid big cuts to education in 2026-27 budget

2026-04-06T23:50:22+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers avoided major cuts to K-12, early childhood, and higher education funding in next year’s budget proposal despite an overall shortfall of more than $1.2 billion.

Major reductions proposed in the bill introduced Monday focus on Medicaid benefits and health care programs. The bill also cuts into the state’s reserves. Lawmakers are required to pass a balanced budget and the School Finance Act before the end of the session on May 13.

Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat and chair of the powerful Joint Budget Committee, said during a news conference late last week that lawmakers wanted to avoid bringing back a maneuver called the Budget Stabilization Factor, which allowed the state to withhold money from constitutionally mandated K-12 funding. Lawmakers also tried to preserve higher education funding but ended up allowing tuition increases that are higher than originally proposed.

Sirota said lawmakers didn’t want to create another education funding hole after they “worked extremely hard over the last many years to dig our way out.”

The Long Bill, as it’s called, proposes that the 2026-27 state budget would grow to $46.8 billion, an increase over this year’s $43.9 billion budget. General fund spending, or the state tax revenue used on the budget, would increase to $17.3 billion, up from $17.1 billion.

Spending on K-12 schools would increase to $10.2 billion statewide, or about $184 million more than this year.

Lawmakers would need to dip into state reserves to fund some of the increase. For example, JBC members propose using the state’s education savings fund to pay for statutorily required increases to funding for special education, English language learners, at-risk students, and others.

Other cuts to K-12 programs

Despite avoiding serious cuts to education, the JBC has proposed smaller reductions.

These include eliminating a statewide program that helps students become teachers, reducing how often certain teachers need to be evaluated, and allowing some students to skip the state’s social studies test. Below are some of the most significant proposals:

Budget lawmakers filed House Bill 1353 to alter the state’s social studies test so it’s administered only to seventh grade public school students. The move would save the state about $303,000 a year.
House Bill 1356 would eliminate a grant program that allows charter schools and districts to create a local accountability system that compliments the state system. The measure would save the state about $507,000.
House Bill 1357 would phase out the state’s Teacher Recruitment Education Program, or TREP, to save about $1.6 million next year and about $3 million in the year after. The idea to eventually eliminate the extended high school program created in 2021 wouldn’t allow schools to designate any new students for the program, meaning many students preparing to use TREP would no longer be eligible.
Colorado lawmakers want to reduce a grant fund to improve state math instruction by about $5.2 million. House Bill 1358 would leave about $3.5 million next year for the program started in 2023 with onetime funding.
Lawmakers proposed halving spending on school bullying prevention grants to $1 million.
The state’s School Counselor Corps Grant Program would also be reduced by $1 million, down to $11 million per year. The grant helps schools hire more counselors and supports training.
The state would reduce adult education and literacy grants by $1 million, bringing that grant fund down to $2 million available through the 2028-29 budget year.
The state would also eliminate the Menstrual Hygiene Grant, or a cut of about $100,000 a year. Budget lawmakers noted that the state requires most schools to provide free menstrual hygiene products for students.

Higher ed and early childhood funding remains stable

JBC members were also able to avoid big cuts to higher education and early childhood funding. Those budgets would only change slightly compared to this year.

JBC lawmakers proposed a slight increase to $6.5 billion in total spending next year on higher education, although a portion of the funding includes programs such as History Colorado.

This means of the total higher education budget, about $1 billion in state support, would go toward colleges and universities. Another $3 billion would come from tuition revenue, according to legislative staff documents.

The state would allow most colleges and universities to increase tuition by 3.5% for resident undergraduate students. The state’s community colleges would be allowed to increase tuition by 5% for residents. And nonresident tuition rates could increase by up to 5%.

The tuition changes would account for $160 million of the $164 million state higher education budget increase.

In-state tuition assistance would remain at $116 per credit hour, or $3,480 per year for a full-time, full-year student.

However, lawmakers did remove about $14 million in state support for residents who attend private colleges and universities.

The state’s early education budget also wouldn’t change significantly. The state proposes to spend about $798 million on those programs, including a $14 million increase for the state’s universal preschool program.

The budget bill took longer this year after lawmakers faced a larger than expected spending shortfall that the state’s budget forecasters have warned could be as high as $1.5 billion. This is the second year that the state has faced a more than $1 billion shortfall, mostly due to increased Medicaid costs. Republican lawmakers have said overspending by Democratic lawmakers is the problem.

The release of the budget now sets up hearings in the House and Senate. Lawmakers will file amendments and debate to finalize the budget. Once both chambers finish their deliberations, the bill will be sent to Gov. Jared Polis to sign into law.

This story has been updated to include the removal of state funding to support Colorado residents who attend private colleges and universities.

Colorado bill would make sure charter schools are considered in local construction ballot measures

2026-03-27T13:00:00+00:00

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Charter school students account for more than 15% of Colorado’s public K-12 enrollment, but advocates say that many charters get far less from local voter initiatives meant to fund construction than the share of students they serve.

A new bill filed last week aims to revise state law to give those schools more consideration from districts in getting their construction needs included on local ballot measures.

According to an analysis by the Colorado League of Charter Schools, a membership-based organization backing the bill, about $15.5 billion was raised from 2015 to 2024 through district ballot measures for construction. Charter schools only received about 3.6% of that money despite a growing share of enrollment.

A legislative analysis of the bill shows the changes won’t cost the state or districts money. And whether this bill increases the amount of taxpayer-approved construction funding for charter schools statewide would be at the discretion of school boards.

Charter schools do also get state money and federal grants for construction and can seek private financiers.

But Dan Schaller, the league’s president, said too many charter schools experience differences in how they work with districts on ballot measures. The goal is to create a fairer process for charter school operators, he said.

“We are approaching things from the vantage point of all public school kids deserve to have their education funded equitably,” Schaller said. “So how do we strengthen the process and make it more clear so that there are adequate opportunities for involvement.”

Colorado school districts can ask voters to raise money for district or charter school construction projects primarily through two methods.

Districts can place a ballot question before local voters to request money to take on onetime bond debt for expenses such as construction or maintenance. Districts can also ask voters to approve a property tax raise for construction, maintenance, or technology upgrades.

Senate Bill 145 would update how districts consider charter school operators in those decisions, including requiring districts to solicit and give consideration to charter school construction proposals.

The bill would also require new timelines for districts working with charter schools on ballot initiatives. And superintendents would need to notify operators about the decision to include or exclude a charter school construction project within a measure.

Bill sponsor state Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican, said he filed the bill to give charter schools more opportunities to take part in the capital needs discussions.

“Many charter schools have very healthy relationships with school districts,” Bright said. “But in other situations, it’s not always that rosy.”

Bright has held discussions with the Colorado Association of School Boards and the Colorado Association of School Executives about concerns and possible changes to the bill. CASB officials didn’t respond to a request for comment, but a CASE official said in an email that the organization is reviewing the legislation.

Bright also asked Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, to join as a sponsor. Kipp has served as a school board member and opposed many charter school laws.

She said she agreed to work on the bill because she wanted to ensure the proposal could work for students and districts.

“As much as I’m not a fan of the charter school governance model, I think we have to acknowledge that 15% of the students in the state are being served by one particular method,” Kipp said. “We can treat everybody in a fair manner, because we want all of our kids treated fairly, right?”

House bill sponsors include Democratic state Reps. Lindsay Gilchrist and Andy Boesenecker.

In balancing the budget, lawmakers might consider cutting CMAS social studies testing

2026-03-25T00:11:53+00:00

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Colorado’s standardized social studies test could potentially be a casualty of budget cuts.

Colorado administers the Colorado Measures of Academic Success social studies standardized test to fourth and seventh graders at a select number of schools.

State lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee have two proposals before them that would create legislation to either cut the social studies test entirely or eliminate testing for elementary school students so the test is given only to seventh graders next year.

By contrast, all students in grades 3 through 11 take standardized math and literacy tests. Science tests are given to all students in grades 5, 8, and 11.

JBC Vice Chair Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, asked last week for the vote on the two pieces of draft legislation to be delayed but didn’t give an explanation as to why. Legislative staff said the vote could happen as early as this week.

Lawmakers face a more than $1 billion budget shortfall in the 2026-27 fiscal year, and the JBC plays a heavy role in recommendations that balance the budget.

In a statement, spokesperson Eric Maruyama said Gov. Jared Polis supports changes to the state’s current social studies assessment that makes the data more usable and cuts costs. However, the governor doesn’t support eliminating the test.

“The future of our democracy depends on ensuring the next generation understands history, civics, and basic economics,” Maruyama said.

The idea to cut the test has the support of the Colorado State Board of Education, which voted unanimously in August to eliminate the social studies assessment as part of budget reductions, according to a Colorado Department of Education spokesperson.

Cutting the social studies test entirely would save the state $836,000, according to the draft legislation. Requiring only seventh graders to take the test would save about $300,000. The pair of draft bills that would reduce the state education department’s budget by those dollar amounts were written in early March by legislative staff for the JBC to consider.

This type of legislation typically must receive a unanimous vote by the JBC to accompany the budget bill, known as the Long Bill. The entire legislature will then consider the legislation as part of the budget packet.

This isn’t the first time lawmakers have either pared back the social studies test or considered cutting CMAS social studies testing entirely.

The test is required by state but not federal law and has been administered since spring 2014, according to the CDE spokesperson.

Originally, the test was also given to high school students, but lawmakers officially ended a requirement for older students to take it in 2020.

And a group of Democratic lawmakers filed legislation in 2023 to get rid of the social studies test requirements. At the time, a legislative analysis showed the idea would save the state about $1 million annually.

The bill passed the Senate and House, but failed to get finalized before the end of the 2023 session, the state’s General Assembly website shows.

Colorado lawmakers have also filed legislation this year to explore how to reduce testing time for elementary and middle school students taking the CMAS. The bill would create a review committee to provide recommendations, and sponsors said the cuts would also save the state money.

That bill cleared its first hearing in the Senate Education Committee, but must pass the Senate Appropriations Committee and the full chamber before it’s sent to the House for consideration.

Correction: March 25, 2026: The original story incorrectly stated the name of the Colorado Measures of Academic Success.

This story has been updated to include a statement from the governor’s office.

Buying a ‘loot box’ in an online game? Some of the swag could help public schools under a Colorado bill.

2026-03-19T01:29:09+00:00

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Microtransactions in online games, such as buying “loot boxes” of virtual items, would be subject to a 5% fee under a bill being considered by Colorado lawmakers, with the revenue going to public schools.

House Bill 1148 is a wide-ranging bill aimed at enhancing data privacy for children who use online gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft. The 5% fee on what the bill calls add-on transactions would generate over $20 million annually for public education, according to a state estimate.

The fee is only one small part of the legislation, but it generated a lot of discussion and questions at a hearing Wednesday before the Colorado House Judiciary Committee.

“If kids are spending money in your ecosystem,” Rep. Jenny Willford, a Northglenn Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said of online gaming platforms, “then a portion of that should come back to support their well-being in the real world.”

The committee heard testimony but did not vote on whether to advance the bill. The bill sponsors asked that the vote be postponed to a later date.

Several lawmakers on the committee said they agree that kids spend too much time on screens, which they said can have negative effects. The bill sponsors also referenced lawsuits alleging that Roblox failed to protect children from adult predators. But Republican lawmakers questioned if the 5% fee was warranted and whether it runs afoul of Colorado rules.

“We’re essentially taxing children,” said Rep. Ava Flanell, a Colorado Springs Republican.

Rep. Matt Soper, a Republican from Delta, repeatedly asked whether the bill would violate Proposition 117, which was passed by Colorado voters in 2020. It requires that any fee that would generate $100 million or more in its first five years get voter approval.

Willford and co-sponsor Rep. Yara Zokaie, a Fort Collins Democrat, said they were still working on that part of the bill. They mentioned a proposed amendment that would put some of the $20 million toward after-school programs but did not formally introduce it Wednesday.

“This fee was not put in place as a deterrent” to making in-game purchases, Zokaie said. “The intent of this fee is to give children a chance to give back to programs that help them.”

Zokaie, who has three children, also noted that, “it is mostly parents’ money. I can attest to that.”

The bill attracted support from groups including the Boys & Girls Club and the Colorado Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Several people who testified described themselves as longtime gamers who love online games but support stricter protections for children.

Representatives from the Entertainment Software Association, a trade association for the video game industry, and TechNet, a network of technology CEOs, testified in opposition. Among other arguments, they said the bill is likely to draw a lawsuit.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado lawmakers unveil bill to ask voters to alter TABOR cap and raise more money for schools

2026-03-06T01:07:04+00:00

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Outdated textbooks, large class sizes, and not enough counselors: Colorado education spending has created a situation where there aren’t enough resources, said teacher Wendy Bergman.

“We are constantly stretching supplies, time, and energy,” said Bergman, who teaches social studies at Rocky Mountain High School in Fort Collins. “Talented, dedicated educators are leaving because of our salaries and our working conditions.”

Educators like Bergman have shared the same message about underfunding for years. Studies show Colorado’s near the bottom in state education funding as a share of total personal income. And state studies released last year show Colorado needs about $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion more annually to adequately resource schools.

On Thursday, a group of Democratic lawmakers announced during a news conference at the Capitol rotunda they’ve filed Senate Bill 135 to help solve that problem.

Joined by Bergman and other Colorado Education Association union members, lawmakers said the bill would ask voters to approve a November ballot measure to increase state spending on K-12 education by 2% each year for the next 10 years.

“For too long, we have asked our schools to do more with less,” said bill sponsor Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who is vice chair of the state’s Joint Budget Committee. “Now is the time to do something different. It is time to fund our schools.”

But history shows getting voters to approve that kind of change might be difficult.

The ballot measure would effectively retool the cap in the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, that mandates how much the state can spend each year. The cap is based on a formula that accounts for inflation and population growth, and the state must return any excess tax revenue above the cap to taxpayers.

The proposed change wouldn’t raise taxes on residents. Instead, the bill would reduce the size of taxpayer refunds.

Lawmakers estimate the state would keep about $200 million more a year to pay for K-12 education, or about $2 billion over the next 10 years. And the money would not only help pay for statewide education expenses, but free up state money to pay for other priorities, lawmakers said.

The bill calls the new funds the Positive Factor — a nod to a mechanism known as the Negative Factor that lawmakers used for nearly 15 years to pull education funding away from schools to balance the budget. (It was also called the Budget Stabilization Factor.)

Lawmakers celebrated their elimination of the factor in the 2024-25 budget during a Taylor Swift-themed rally where they declared the state would never get “back together” with the Negative Factor.

But that jubilation may have been premature. Bridges said the state is in a difficult budget situation this year that’s only going to get worse. And lawmakers might need to use the Negative Factor once again and withhold money from schools starting in the 2026-27 budget year due to an $850 million budget hole, he said.

Despite Colorado’s overall budget increasing, TABOR only allows the state budget to grow so large, and state lawmakers face higher costs in programs like Medicaid, he said.

“I think legislators are starting to understand how dire this is,” Bridges said. “It’s a bad year.”

House Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat and bill sponsor, said she wants voters to know that the revenue cap on state government was created in 1992, when classroom instruction looked a lot different.

“2026 is not 1992,” she said. “And costs have gone up more than inflation.”

Republicans have questioned the need for the bill. In January, Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who also sits on the state’s Joint Budget Committee, said she wouldn’t support the proposal and that Democrats should work within the TABOR cap.

“We’re not in a recession,” she said at the time. “It’s not like we have less revenues coming in.”

Voters have rejected several efforts to alter TABOR since a 2005 revision.

Colorado Education Association President Kevin Vick said the teachers union has extensively researched whether voters would support such a measure.

“What voters are telling us again and again is they’re sick and tired of seeing their kids’ favorite teachers not being able to make it in education in Colorado,” he said. “And they understand that that is largely due to just a complete lack of resources in our system right now.”

Vick said the bill already has support from the Colorado Children’s Campaign, the Colorado Rural Schools Alliance, Colorado Association of School Boards, and Stand for Children.

About 40 Democratic House and Senate lawmakers have also signed on in support of the bill.

Colorado lawmakers file the School Finance Act early. But will that really help districts?

2026-01-30T23:54:19+00:00

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Every year, Colorado school districts must scramble to finish their budgets before June 30. But state lawmakers typically don’t approve the School Finance Act, which signals how much state money districts stand to receive, until the last days of the legislative session.

The timing of the bill’s passage has been a point of contention for school finance officers, who have called for changes for years.

“We try to hold everything off until we know the state picture,” said Mike Madden, finance director for Delta County Joint District 50.

This year, a group of lawmakers have sought to fix that problem, filing the School Finance Act on the first day of session, the earliest it’s been filed in recent years. However, the effort might be mostly symbolic, because state education funding remains vulnerable to other budget maneuvers.

School administrators said lawmakers have a history of cutting money from schools in different ways due to budget challenges. Last year, legislators facing a $1.2 billion budget shortfall cut school funding through a renegotiation of a funding formula approved just a year earlier. In previous years, lawmakers cut funding through the Budget Stabilization Factor, which allowed them to use constitutionally mandated school funding for other priorities.

This year, with the state facing an $850 million budget hole, Madden and other finance officers said they’re wary that further cuts in the 2026-27 fiscal year funding will occur. They’re also concerned about federal budget impacts, and a proposed change to how the state calculates Specific Ownership Tax, although it might not kick in immediately. Coloradans pay these taxes every year when they register their vehicles.

Jana Schleusner, Douglas County School District’s chief financial officer, said that changes lawmakers have made to school finance are hard for families and taxpayers to follow, but that they amount to balancing the state budget on the backs of schools.

“If you’re going to cut, stop playing these games around the edges, and let’s be real about what we’re doing to education,” Schleusner said.

Sponsors aim to make school discussion a priority

This year’s budget conversations are just getting underway, and it’s unlikely the Joint Budget Committee will make any major decisions until after the state’s March revenue and economic forecast.

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who sits on the JBC, said she filed the School Finance Act ahead of time to get fellow lawmakers to make school funding the legislature’s first priority. State Sen. Chris Kolker and Rep. Eliza Hamrick, both Democrats from Centennial, are also sponsors.

The bill calls for $10.2 billion in statewide education funding, compared with about $10 billion this year. The calculations are based on the baseline funding promises made last year, Kirkmeyer said

“Funding education should come first,” said Kirkmeyer, who is running for governor.

Kolker said he understands why finance officers are so wary about cuts. He said he will fight to preserve school funding based on the promises lawmakers have made.

“I filed this bill to make it transparent and try to lessen their apprehensions, because these school finance officers need to know early what they’re getting so they can then set their budgets,” he said.

School district budget pictures get murkier when lawmakers propose cuts to state education funding, said Terry Kimber, Widefield School District 3’s chief finance officer.

For example, last year’s change to the school finance formula left districts scrambling to understand how much they would get from the state. District administrators held off on hiring staff, he said, and educators didn’t know whether they’d get a raise.

Many sources of concern over funding

It’s unclear whether lawmakers writing the state budget will decide to try to make funding changes for schools again this year, said Tracie Rainey, Colorado School Finance Project executive director.

What’s certain is that lawmakers have a tough budget outlook that will require many cuts, she said. “I think that’s what’s going to determine a lot of this, more than just the intent behind school finance,” she said.

District leaders are worried about how federal funding cuts might impact schools, Rainey said. The state has sued the Trump administration over these cuts.

They’re also worried that lawmakers will make statutory changes that calculate how Specific Ownership Tax revenue counts toward what schools get from the state.

Colorado’s school finance formula does not count all Specific Ownership Tax revenue as money collected by a district, according to state budget documents. This is important because some districts have asked local voters to approve additional taxes for schools. The law says the extra tax revenue doesn’t get counted against the districts in determining what they get from the state.

Changing state law to count all Specific Ownership Tax collected would increase how much districts are expected to pay toward education and decrease what the state needs to pay. This would decrease the state’s obligation toward schools by about $200 million.

Budget documents released on Jan. 23 propose for this change to be phased-in over two years: the 2027-28 and 2028-29 budget years.

School leaders have pushed back on the proposal. Kolker and others have committed to ensuring the idea doesn’t pass.

Kimber said he just wants lawmakers to keep the promises they’ve made after years of uncertainty.

“When we make these agreements,” Kimber said, “they should stand by them.”

Colorado ballot measure would use Pinnacol Assurance proceeds for workforce training

2026-01-23T00:15:00+00:00

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A coalition of education-minded business leaders is proposing a Colorado ballot measure that calls for fully privatizing a state-run insurance provider and using the proceeds to help residents access workforce training.

Pinnacol Assurance, which provides workers compensation insurance, operates like a private mutual insurance company but, as a state political subdivision, gets certain state and federal tax exemptions. Its future has been a matter of political debate for years, especially because the company’s leaders have wanted to sell insurance out of state, but can’t because of its state ties.

The proposed ballot measure puts pressure on state lawmakers to figure out how to separate Pinnacol from the state government or risk letting voters decide its fate.

Colorado is facing an $850 million budget hole for the next fiscal year. Gov. Jared Polis’ 2026-27 budget proposal called for Pinnacol to pay the state $400 million for the right to convert to a private company. Polis proposed using that money to pay for priorities such as K-12 education and health care. The company’s leaders called Polis’ proposal a step forward but expressed reservations about how much money should go back to the state.

The proposed ballot measure was filed last week by Colorado Succeeds, which aims to draw on business leaders to help solve education problems in the state. The initiative needs about 124,000 signatures to make the November ballot.

The measure would provide an alternative to Polis’ plan while also boosting a variety of workforce training programs. These include apprenticeships, as well as programs that were propped up by one-time federal pandemic relief funds that offered free training opportunities in fields like teaching, healthcare, and skilled trades.

Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said on Wednesday that Polis still backs his budget proposal and thinks state lawmakers should figure out how to proceed with Pinnacol, rather than leaving it up to voters.

“The ballot proposal would convert Pinnacol but lacks robust feedback from workers and employers alike and significantly undervalues Pinnacol as a state asset,” Wieman said.

The ballot measure would generate less than Polis’ proposed $400 million. It would use $150 million from a Pinnacol trust established in 2002 when the company partially separated from the state to create a so-called Skilled Workers and Trades Fund. The measure would generate an additional $10 million per year for the fund from ending Pinnacol’s state tax subsidies.

Scott Laband, president of Colorado Succeeds, said he expects the fund to provide scholarships of up to $3,000 per year for eligible Coloradans and support workforce training for about 5,000 Coloradans a year.

The measure would allow Pinnacol to become fully private by 2027.

“Pinnacol was created to serve Colorado’s workforce,” Laband said. “So this is a direct connection to continuing that mission by investing in the workforce skills that are needed to be successful in Colorado’s labor market and economy.”

Laband said he views the ballot measure as a win for Pinnacol, lawmakers, and students. The state has pieced together funding for some workforce training programs through one-time funding and grants, he said, while this measure represents an opportunity to invest in training that will benefit the industries Pinnacol has supported for years. The organization’s measure would provide sustained funding and evolve with the workforce needs of Colorado, he said.

Polis’ Pinnacol proposal, by contrast, is a short-term solution that would provide one-time funding to cover a state budget deficit, Laband said.

“It makes more sense to make this a legacy asset so residents can get good paying jobs and become contributors to the state economy,” Laband said.

A Pinnacol Assurance spokesperson said in a statement that the company’s board hasn’t yet taken a position on the ballot measure or the governor’s budget proposal. The company’s priorities are to “represent the best interests of our members and workers, paying an appropriate price for a full separation, and maintaining the capital to support workers across the state,” the statement reads.

The statement added company leaders are encouraged by the ballot measure’s focus on long-term workforce development and skills training.

“Through Pinnacol’s own leadership in this space, we have seen firsthand how training and vocational support can transform the lives of Colorado workers,” the statement says. “Expanding this commitment through additional investment in skills training also supports the needs of our economy, helps prevent future workplace injuries, and ultimately lowers costs for employers.”

Democratic House and Senate leaders didn’t commit to the measure as they mull how to approach the Pinnacol situation and the state’s budget hole.

Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie said in a statement on Thursday that Pinnacol will be a big topic this legislative session that has generated a lot of different ideas for its future.

“I look forward to reviewing the ballot measure in more detail and talking with stakeholders who are engaging in the Pinnacol conversion conversation,” she said.

Senate President James Coleman said in a statement that he’s committed to looking at all options to address this year’s budget shortfall. The proposed ballot measure wouldn’t allow lawmakers to have a say over the funds, he said.

“Any decision would benefit from deliberation and oversight from the (Joint Budget Committee) and legislature as a part of the holistic budget picture,” he said.

Colorado Democrats plan ballot measure to raise money for schools

2026-01-16T04:35:11+00:00

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Colorado Democrats plan to file legislation this session that would ask voters for permission to raise the state spending cap by billions while also increasing funding for education.

The idea, brought to lawmakers by the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, is the most recent proposal to retool the state’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights. TABOR, as it’s known, limits the state’s revenue growth, making it hard to spend more money on schools and other priorities.

CEA President Kevin Vick said the measure would be placed on the 2026 ballot and will ask voters to raise the TABOR spending cap by the amount of the current general fund education budget, which is about $4.5 billion in the 2025-26 year.

The measure would essentially exempt current K-12 general fund spending from TABOR, which restricts state revenue growth to the rate of inflation plus population growth. The maneuver would make room under the cap to allow the state to keep money for education and other priorities instead of returning that money to voters as TABOR requires.

“We need to see some advancement and some improvement in our funding,” Vick said. “Otherwise, we’re just going to be floundering like we have in these last few years.”

Colorado has put more money toward schools for the past few years, but a pair of studies commissioned by state lawmakers concluded the state needs to spend $3.5 to $4.1 billion more to provide students with an adequate education.

The proposed measure would increase school funding by about 2% — or about $90 million — each year for 10 years.

The initiative would help solve two major issues.

The funding would help pay to adequately teach students statewide. And lawmakers have faced spending deficits due to increasing costs in programs such as Medicaid. This year, lawmakers will need to cut more than $800 million to balance the 2026-27 budget after trimming over $1 billion in the 2025 legislative session.

Republicans are expected to push back on any measure that would alter the TABOR cap.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who also sits on the state’s Joint Budget Committee, said Democrats have long bemoaned TABOR when their “addiction to spending” is the problem. She said she wouldn’t support the proposal.

“We’re not in a recession,” she said. “It’s not like we have less revenues coming in.”

Left-leaning tax policy groups have said state spending has only grown modestly in the last two decades, causing spending on basic needs like education to lag behind. Democrats have also pointed to TABOR for years as limiting what can be spent on education and other priorities.

Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat who is the Joint Budget Committee vice chair and plans to sponsor the legislation, said he’s worried the current TABOR spending limits mean the state won’t be able to maintain recent investments in K-12 education. That includes the continued implementation of the state’s new school funding formula, which is in its first year, and eliminating the Budget Stabilization Factor in the 2024-25 school year.

The funding formula will be phased in over seven years and require $500 million more for education. And the Budget Stabilization Factor allowed lawmakers to divert billions in constitutionally mandated education funding to other priorities. Bridges said he doesn’t want to return to pulling money away from schools.

“We are fighting every year to just keep what we’ve been able to accomplish,” he said. “This allows us to not only do that, but to continue to invest in our schools.”

Voters have rejected several efforts to alter TABOR or raise the spending cap since the spending cap was last revised in 2005.

A progressive coalition also wants voters to amend the Constitution to move Colorado to a graduated income tax rate. The measure, which would be on the 2026 ballot, would also raise billions for the state to spend on priorities such as health care and education.

Vick said he believes the measure his organization has pitched can succeed because the teacher union’s public polling shows overwhelming support for increasing K-12 education funding.

CEA polls say voters by a 2-to-1 margin are willing to give up their TABOR rebates to put more money toward improving education, Vick said. More money going toward schools would help retain teachers. Colorado’s teacher turnover rate remains high, he said.

“I think voters and people in the community are really concerned that they are seeing their kids’ favorite teachers leave the profession year after year, simply because they can’t make a go of it in this state,” he said. “We have to stop that churn as a state, and we have to make sure that our educators can live in their communities.”

Gov. Jared Polis reflects on his education legacy in his final State of the State address

2026-01-15T23:24:14+00:00

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In his final State of the State address, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis reflected on his education legacy after two terms in office.

Polis heads into his last year in office having implemented full-day kindergarten, created a universal preschool program, restored school funding to state constitutionally mandated levels, and focused on workforce training. His ambitious agenda will run up against budget challenges again this year as the state faces an $800 million deficit at the start of this year’s legislative session.

Polis, who is term-limited and will leave the post in 2027, said his passion for improving education drove him to public service. He started his political career on the Colorado State Board of Education.

“Twenty-six years ago, I was driving around the state in an old school bus campaigning for the State Board of Education, demanding more investment in Colorado schools to ensure every student could get a high quality education and thrive,” he said. “Education is about opportunity and hope.”

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who is running for governor, was critical of Polis’ education legacy. She said Republicans were instrumental in getting Polis to allocate more funding to education over the years.

Kirkmeyer criticized Polis for retooling the state’s new funding formula just a year after it passed, which changed how much funding school districts received this year. Polis’ budget for the next school year calls for an increase in state education funding despite a tough budget scenario.

“If it wasn’t for the work that Republicans have done, myself included, to ensure that we eliminate the Budget Stabilization Factor and then guarantee that we’re going to fund education and put it in statute, I think he would have come in with an education cut again this year,” she said, referring to a previous state practice of cutting education funding to pay for other priorities

State Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat, said Polis deserves major credit for prioritizing education, including helping usher in a new school funding formula and eliminating the Budget Stabilization Factor, which diverted billions in mandated education funding from schools.

“To me, that’s a huge legacy, being able to readjust, update the formula, and making sure that it makes sense for everyone in Colorado,” Martinez said.

Polis criticized the Trump administration for some of Colorado’s budget difficulties. The administration has withheld federal funding from the state, and Polis needed to call a special session last year to address federal budget changes that caused a $750 million shortfall.

Colorado also faces about an $800 million shortfall this year due to the need for more spending to maintain programs such as Medicaid.

In his speech, Polis didn’t mention two lawmaker-commissioned reports that say the state needs about $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion more a year to adequately fund education. Lawmakers have said they want to find ways this year to increase the pot of money for Colorado education, which ranks near the bottom in the nation in terms of funding.

Polis said in a news conference after his speech that his focus this year is on the preservation of K-12 funding and reining in healthcare costs. But he didn’t offer any specific ideas for how to bring in more revenue for education.

“We need to make sure that we have budget stability over the long term,” he said.

2026 Colorado General Assembly: The people’s guide to following education issues

2026-01-12T19:55:50+00:00

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Every January, 100 people elected to the Colorado General Assembly gather in Denver for 120 days and make decisions that affect students and teachers in the classroom, university administrators trying to balance their budgets, and parents and students having to make tuition payments.

There are only two bills that legislators have to pass before they adjourn in May: a balanced budget and the school finance act. Both have profound implications for educational opportunity.

Lawmakers also tackle many more education issues, from school meals to school safety, from what students should learn in the classroom to workforce training.

But it can be hard for ordinary citizens to understand how ideas turn into laws.

To explain the lawmaking process and the opportunities for public input, we’ve prepared this guide to the legislative session that starts Wednesday, and how you can get involved:

How a bill becomes a law

Think Schoolhouse Rock’s “I’m Just a Bill.”

Legislators get ideas for bills from a lot of places. A legislator might have a passion for a particular topic. The governor’s office or leaders of state agencies might request a policy change. An interest group or ordinary citizens might ask a lawmaker to help solve a problem.

Lawmakers work with bill drafters — nonpartisan legislative staff — to write a bill. Once a lawmaker introduces it, leaders in either the House or the Senate assign it to a committee, usually one with relevant expertise.

Most education bills go to a chamber’s education committee, but a bill on youth mental health might land first in the health committee, or one on police in schools might be heard by the judiciary committee.

A few committees — most infamously the State Affairs committees — are known as “kill” committees, where leadership can send controversial bills, especially those from the opposing parties, to ensure they don’t reach the floor.

A bill must win committee approval to proceed to the full House or Senate. Some bills might need to go through more than one committee.

Bills must get approved twice in the first chamber, before heading to the next chamber, where they go through the process all over again. Bills can be amended at any point in the process, and both chambers must sign off on the same final form of a bill for it to clear the legislature.

Then the governor decides whether to sign it into law.

Who has a vote on the Colorado education committees

For this session, the House Education Committee has 13 members — eight Democrats and five Republicans:

Chair Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat
Vice Chair Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat
Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat
Rep. Mary Bradfield, a Colorado Springs Republican
Rep. Ava Flanell, a Colorado Springs Republican
Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican
Rep. Lindsay Gilchrist, a Denver Democrat
Rep. Eliza Hamrick, a Centennial Democrat
Rep. Anthony Hartsook, a Parker Republican
Rep. Dusty Johnson, a Fort Morgan Republican
Rep. Jacque Phillips, a Thornton Democrat
Rep. Katie Stewart, a Durango Democrat
Rep. Tammy Story, a Conifer Democrat

Find the committee schedule, documents, and live and archived audio of its meetings at the committee website.

The Senate Education Committee has seven members — four Democrats and three Republicans:

Chair Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat
Vice Chair Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat
Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican
Sen. Lisa Frizel, a Castle Rock Republican
Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat
Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, a Commerce City Democrat
Sen. Janice Rich, a Grand Junction Republican

Find the committee schedule, documents, and live and archived audio of its meetings at the committee website.

Find the names and contact information of all current Colorado lawmakers here. And find maps of current legislative districts here.

Can you speak on a bill or submit testimony?

If you’re interested in having your perspective heard, there are a few ways to get involved.

You can speak on the bill in person or remotely, or submit a written statement to the committee. The sign-up process is not difficult. Just fill out this online form.

Speakers are generally limited to two to three minutes, so think about how to make your point quickly and clearly.

Want to know the schedule?

The full schedule of the House and Senate can typically be found online on the Colorado General Assembly website’s landing page.

The session schedule should be posted daily and gets updated as bills move through the process.

How to look up Colorado General Assembly bills

Looking for a bill online? Go to the Colorado General Assembly’s bill search page. There you can search by a bill number, the sponsor, or a topic.

When you click on a bill, you’ll see a summary of what the bill does, the full text of the bill, and other relevant information, such as a fiscal note that explains how much passing the law would cost the state. Often the description of a bill in the fiscal note is easier to understand than the bill language itself.

You can also search through tabs near the bottom of the page that include the bill’s history, when it’s scheduled to be heard again, any amendments, and a summary of the committee votes.

What’s the Joint Budget Committee, and why is it so important?

The six-member Joint Budget Committee is the most influential committee in the Colorado General Assembly. Why? Because it writes the budget that guides the state’s priorities. The committee members this year are four Democrats and two Republicans, with Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat, as chair.

Yes, Gov. Jared Polis does submit a budget every November. And the governor’s priorities guide the Joint Budget Committee’s work. But the committee ultimately writes the budget that gets submitted to the General Assembly for approval.

Other lawmakers also have a chance to submit budget amendments that reflect their own spending priorities — but lawmakers need to pass a balanced budget, and the Joint Budget Committee will strip out amendments that endanger that goal.

The budget shapes every facet of state government, including K-12 and higher education spending.

Learn more about the budget process here.

Want to know more about the education topics we expect to come up this session?

We held our annual legislative preview event on Jan. 6, focused on the education issues we expect lawmakers to consider in 2026. You can watch a recording here.

Need a refresher on what happened last year? We rounded up the education bills of the 2025 session.

Want to know more about how lobbying affects the legislative process? Check out our deep dive on education lobbying, produced in collaboration with data reporter Sandra Fish.

Have questions or a tip? We’re listening at co.tips@chalkbeat.org.

National editor Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

As another budget shortfall looms, Colorado lawmakers aim to preserve K-12 education funding

2026-01-09T22:41:46+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers will need to focus heavily on how to further education priorities in another difficult budget year, five members of the state House and Senate education committees said during Chalkbeat Colorado’s annual Legislative Preview event Thursday.

State Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat who is vice chair of the Senate Education Committee, said lawmakers won’t be able to put much money toward new policies during the 2026 legislative session, which starts on Wednesday.

“We have a budget shortfall again,” Marchman said. “A big push this year is going to be keeping our education funding for K-12 as solid as it can be.”

Gov. Jared Polis has proposed a 5.2% increase in the state’s 2026-27 budget, including a $276 million increase for education that would bring total statewide K-12 spending to about $10.3 billion. Although the proposed $47.9 billion budget is higher than last year, rising state costs, especially to maintain Medicaid spending, have outpaced state revenue.

Lawmakers will need to cut about $800 million to balance the budget. At the same time, lawmakers are working through uncertainty about federal funding after the Trump administration froze money for safety nets and other programs.

Colorado also faced a deficit last year that forced lawmakers to cut more than $1 billion in spending. The state’s education budget increased, but lawmakers reworked the state funding formula to help balance the budget.

Rep. Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat who serves on the House Education Committee, said preserving K-12 education funding is near the top of his list this year.

He said maintaining the education budget “is paramount, especially in this tight budget year. We want to be able to make sure that we are delivering for our students, our faculty, and our school districts.”

Along with Marchman and Martinez, three other state lawmakers joined Chalkbeat Colorado for the event. They were:

Sen. Scott Bright, a Platteville Republican
Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat
Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, an Eaton Republican

The event was moderated by Chalkbeat reporter Jason Gonzales and Efren Garcia, a first-generation doctoral student at the Colorado School of Public Health who is studying environmental-occupational health. He is active with Young Invincibles, an organization that amplifies the voices of young adults, and works as a policy analyst at the Bell Policy Center.

Here are several excerpts from the discussion, which have been edited for length and clarity.

A Board of Cooperative Education Services, or BOCES, authorized what its leaders have called Colorado’s “first public Christian school,” surprising state education officials and members of the public. Are you concerned about this development, and if so, what do you think should be done about it?

Bright: It’s interesting when folks … are trying to test that line and see where Colorado really sits with regard to its separation of church and state. I’m anxious to see how it goes. Quite honestly, I am not partial one way or the other, but I’m anxious to see what happens and what Colorado thinks.

Lukens: I was a social studies teacher. I have taught AP Government. I know that our country was founded on the separation of church and state, and public schools are funded by taxpayers. And when we are a government entity, it is important that we have separation of church and state … So I will certainly be tracking this situation.

Polis has said Colorado will opt into a new federal tax credit scholarship program, which would provide tax credits for donations supporting private school students. Do you support this decision, and do you believe the legislature should have a role in approving or shaping how this program is implemented in Colorado?

Marchman: I’ve understood that the governor is saying, “Hey, if there’s money on the table for Colorado, let’s bring it.” But we have seen time and again, when states try to implement vouchers, they are not successful. They end up not helping any of our students or any of our staff. I don’t support it. One thing I’ve been doing is talking to the gubernatorial candidates to see where they stand on this, because ultimately it will be their decision.

Garcia Sander: I am a supporter of school choice. We have declining birth rates. We are more at risk of regular public schools closing. Parents are also more savvy consumers, and they’re shopping, and they want the best education for their kids. I think a lot of people would love to see more options on where they can direct their tax dollars. There’s lots of different tax credits that we offer, and this is just another way to offer parents choice.

Federal student protections are shifting and the Office for Civil Rights is facing a significant backlog of discrimination complaints. Should lawmakers create more options for families to report issues of discrimination they’re facing in K-12 and higher education settings?

Martinez: There are legislators that are actively working to codify protections into state law, so that families and students have a clear state-level avenue for relief in the absence of reliable federal pathways. Colorado already has a strong foundation. It’s our responsibility as the state, as state lawmakers, to pick up where the federal government has left off. We expect to introduce a bill this year that does exactly that and protects Coloradans.

The Colorado Child Care Assistance Program, or CCCAP, is a subsidy that helps low-income Colorado parents pay for child care. In many Colorado counties, there are waitlists or freezes in place, and thousands of families are waiting to receive these subsidies. At the same time, the Trump administration has put a freeze on federal funding that supports this program. How will you address this?

Bright: I own rural childcare centers, and our CCCAP families rely on our services for a safe place for them to place their kids while they’re going to work.

I convened a meeting earlier this week with legislators, the Department of Early Childhood, the governor’s office, and many counties to try to solve this very thing. We came up with 12 different options. Some of them are more or less likely to happen, but we’re definitely going to walk down that path and try to get some of these freezes unthawed.

I can tell you that I have looked at this firsthand, and I believe the State of Colorado, the Department of Early Childhood, has done an over the top great job of making sure that there isn’t fraud in our system. I can tell you, from the provider perspective, we have to go through so many checks to make sure that our folks are legitimate, that they’re real, and that they have all the documentation that they need.

So it’s just a matter of laying that out and showing that we are completely compliant.

Colorado has seen more school violence, including a school shooting at Evergreen High School, where the SRO was called off campus before the shooting. What would further legislative action or solutions look like, if any?

Garcia Sander: We’ve got a lot of rural schools that are sitting ducks, and we need to make sure that the staff there have the tools that they need and the training that they need to keep their students safe. Not everybody’s in a metro area where there might be a law enforcement officer down the city street. I think we need to look at lots of different answers that work best for communities.

Polis all in on Trump’s tax-credit scholarship while other Dem governors wait and see

2025-12-06T01:55:30+00:00

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Gov. Jared Polis plans to opt Colorado into a federal tax-credit scholarship program, opening the door to private school choice in a Democratic state where lawmakers and voters have rejected previous proposals.

Conservatives, children’s advocates, and supporters of school choice praised the decision for its possibility to raise money for all students’ education. Meanwhile, a coalition of public school advocates sent a letter to Polis this week asking him to reconsider.

The voucher-like program, part of President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget bill, has the potential to generate billions of dollars for private school tuition and other educational expenses, such as tutoring, but governors have to decide whether to participate.

Polis appears to be the second Democratic governor to announce his intention to join. North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein did so in August under pressure from state Republican lawmakers who have dramatically expanded the state’s voucher system. Polis also is the second governor to opt in from a state where voters rejected a school choice measure at the ballot. Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, a Republican, signed an order in September declaring that his state would participate, setting the stage for Nebraska’s first private school choice program after voters there overturned voucher legislation in 2024.

School choice supporters had hoped the federal program would expand educational opportunities in states where politics made it difficult or impossible to pass voucher legislation. Polis, meanwhile, said he saw other potential benefits.

Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman said in a statement Friday that the governor would not have voted for the budget bill, but he is not interested in leaving hundreds of millions in federal money on the table that could provide additional funding for after-school programming, summer school, scholarships, and academic tutoring.

“This tax credit creates an immense opportunity for Coloradans to support students in our state, but only if we opt in,” she said. “He welcomes the opportunity to work with school districts and other education stakeholders to help ensure this credit can benefit the greatest number of students across our state with evidence-based programs that supplement school days. He encourages the administration to ensure these tax credits lead to improved student outcomes.”

The tax-credit program allows taxpayers to reduce their tax liability if they donate to eligible scholarship-granting organizations, which then pay for students’ educational expenses.

The law allows donations to benefit public and private school students alike, but how feasible it might be to harness donations for public school students will depend in part on rules that the Treasury Department has yet to issue.

The Colorado Sun first reported that Polis plans to opt Colorado into the program. He expressed openness to the idea last summer and supported a version of a voucher plan earlier in his career. Polis said in a statement Friday that he doesn’t believe vouchers are a good use of public funds and that this tax credit is not a voucher.

States officially opt in by presenting a list of eligible scholarship-granting organizations to the Treasury Department, a step that must wait until rules are finalized next year.

Polis’ decision doesn’t necessarily mean Colorado will participate in the tax-credit program over the long term. Polis is term-limited, and the winner of the governor’s race next year could make a different decision.

Supporters of Polis’ decision agreed that the tax credits present an opportunity for the state to raise millions for students, including to support them in out-of-school opportunities and to pay for transportation and school supplies. Advocates say the tax-credit scholarship program helps students in underperforming schools attend other school options.

Tony Lewis, executive director of the Donnell-Kay Foundation, which works on education policy, said he hopes the tax credit rules allow scholarship-granting organizations the ability to pay for a wide range of activities, such as sports, after-school programs, theater classes, and summer camps. (The Donnell-Kay Foundation also has provided funding to Chalkbeat. Read more about our supporters and our ethics policy here.)

“If we pass up this opportunity to opt in now, we close any possibility of doing good work for public school kids,” he said. “Why not keep your options open?”

The Colorado Children’s Campaign, an advocacy organization, also expressed optimism about the potential to benefit public school students.

And Ready Colorado Executive Director Brenda Dickhoner said the decision means more opportunities for kids, especially those wanting to participate in enrichment programs. The conservative organization focuses on school choice and education reform.

“It’s a way for us to solve this problem of closing this opportunity gap, and making it more equitable for kids to access after school enrichment, whether it’s band or sports or any type of tutoring,” she said in an interview.

The program doesn’t require state investment. Instead, it allows states to decide whether taxpayers can donate funds to scholarship-granting organizations and receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit. Individual taxpayers can claim a credit of up to $1,700 starting in 2027.

Those organizations would give the money to parents to pay for education expenses, such as a students’ private school tuition, books, transportation, and uniforms. Families earning up to 300% of area median income would qualify. That threshold includes well-off families in expensive urban areas but might exclude middle-class families in some rural communities.

Colorado voters in 2024 rejected Amendment 80, which would have enshrined the right to school choice in the state’s Constitution. In 2021, they rejected a measure that would have used marijuana tax dollars to support after-school programs and tutoring.

Polis reiterated his decision to opt in despite pleas from a coalition led by Great Education Colorado that delivered a letter to Polis on Wednesday saying the state should not participate.

The letter said the state should focus on providing more resources to schools and respect voters’ wishes to keep vouchers out of the state.

The group added that the state can and must do better when it comes to public education. “But publicly funded school vouchers are not the way to achieve this,” the letter says.

The letter says studies have shown vouchers provide mixed results in improving student achievement. It also says the program lacks public accountability and allows discrimination against children with disabilities or who identify as LGBTQ+.

“Unlike the private or religious schools that vouchers support, our public schools are obligated to teach all students, holding fast to the American ideal of public education as a springboard to success and as necessary to a well-functioning democracy,” the letter says.

The list of organizations calling on Polis to reject the plan include the Colorado Education Association, Colorado Fiscal Institute, Colorado PTA, Movimiento Poder, and The Bell Policy Center.

Colorado counselors set to lose valuable FAFSA student data after state budget cuts

2025-11-18T19:46:57+00:00

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At a time when Colorado lawmakers want to boost the number of students filling out college financial aid forms, high school counselors are set to lose access to a state data tool that experts say is key to accomplishing that goal.

The tool shows counselors each student’s progress toward completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Counselors use it to figure out if students are running into issues during the process so they can then get those students help.

The Colorado Department of Higher Education hired a temporary, full-time coordinator to manage the tool in 2023 as part of a push to increase FAFSA outreach. But state lawmakers cut the $61,000 position this past spring due to a budget shortfall. State budget writers thought it wouldn’t be needed because there’s already federal and state support for students to fill out the revamped FAFSA.

Although the so-called Better FAFSA has improved the process after a rocky rollout, national experts say state-run data tools such as this one remain one of the more effective ways to raise FAFSA completion rates — short of mandating that high school students complete the FAFSA to graduate, a policy Colorado has not adopted.

The loss of the coordinator means the state will stop providing student-level data starting in 2026.

Gabriel Guindon, Denver Scholarship Foundation’s director of college access, said his team was shocked when they heard about the cut in September. Guindon said it will be more difficult for his organization, which focuses on supporting Denver students going to college, to pinpoint students who haven’t completed a financial aid form.

“It is the one reliable, accurate source that summarizes where all students in a school building stand in terms of financial aid completion,” he said. “It will remove any ability for us to have an accurate list.”

The FAFSA opens up the possibility of federal money and other grants and scholarships to pay for college. State lawmakers have wanted to increase FAFSA support because students who complete it are more likely to immediately enroll in college. Many of Colorado’s highest paying jobs with opportunity for growth require schooling beyond high school.

Colorado has also ranked near the bottom in FAFSA completion for years. This last year, Colorado ranked 44th in the nation in getting 2025 high school seniors to complete the FAFSA. About 49% of its seniors finished the form. Data for the 2026 school year hasn’t been released yet.

In 2022, a state working group released a report commissioned by lawmakers that outlined ideas to help move Colorado into the top 10% of FAFSA completion by 2026 or get 80% of seniors filling out the form.

The report included recommendations to increase staff to help students, improve data resources, and create a statewide FAFSA requirement. Lawmakers have provided some money for the work, and the state has added multiple positions to its outreach team.

Lawmakers also haven’t fully funded recommendations in part due to budget concerns and to give the federal government time to fix problems with the new FAFSA application, which launched in late 2023. Lawmakers have also expressed concerns that a graduation requirement would place more work on schools.

Without the data tool, Guindon said his staff at the Denver Scholarship Foundation will have to reach out directly to every student to understand their progress.

“This is probably going to quadruple the amount of time, and probably even more, that (my) team members will have to focus on reaching out to students about their financial aid progress,” said Guindon.

The Colorado Department of Higher Education asked lawmakers in its budget request to continue funding the position. Joint Budget Committee staff recommended in March its elimination because “significant federal and local systems and structures provide robust support for FAFSA application completion to both individuals, families, and schools.”

Budget lawmakers did provide permanent funding at the request of the department for a Colorado Application for State Financial Aid coordinator, which the department created at about the same time as the coordinator who managed FAFSA data.

CASFA helps determine financial need for students who can’t fill out the FAFSA, such as students without legal documentation. Budget writers included $88,000 a year for the CASFA coordinator because they determined there’s less support for these students.

Without the FAFSA coordinator, the department will only be able to show district-level FAFSA completion data through the tool.

“I don’t know if we made a strong enough case, because I was surprised that they [the Joint Budget Committee] would cut it,” Colorado Higher Education Department Executive Director Angie Paccione said. “I’ll take that. I’ll own it.”

Bill DeBaun, senior director of data and strategic initiatives with the National College Attainment Network, said he’s never heard of a state removing access to a data tool due to how important the information can be to educators.

“There’s nothing I’m aware of inherent in the new FAFSA that would obviate the need for the kinds of state to local data sharing that have been successful across the country,” he said.

In 2019, Colorado had 15 FAFSA coordinators funded by a grant who worked in regions across the state, Paccione said. Since the grant expired, the team has gotten smaller, she said.

After the most recent cut, Colorado has eight staff members who work on FAFSA outreach but that’s only a very small portion of their job, a spokesperson said. The team has fewer staff members than in smaller states like Kentucky, North Carolina, and Georgia, DeBaun said.

The data coordinator potentially had the most widespread impact, DeBaun said.

“If you told me that I could have a coordinator who was either doing statewide programming or who could focus on the data sharing,” he said, “I would want to keep that data sharing piece because that is something that potentially touches every single school and school counselor in a state.”

Gov. Jared Polis’ budget proposal keeps K-12 funding promises, allows for college tuition increases

2025-10-31T23:35:21+00:00

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Gov. Jared Polis’ 2026-27 budget proposal unveiled Friday would increase statewide K-12 education spending by $276 million and fulfill funding promises made by lawmakers during this year’s legislative session.

The state’s universal preschool program would also get a small budget increase, while higher education institutions would be allowed to raise in-state tuition by the projected rate of inflation.

Overall, Polis proposed a $47.9 billion state budget for the 2026-27 fiscal year, or a 5.2% increase over this year’s $43.9 billion budget.

Polis’ proposal would bring total K-12 spending by the state and districts to about $10.3 billion, and it would increase per student spending to an average of $12,272, or $413 more than this year.

Polis’ budget follows the plan to phase-in the state’s new funding formula in seven years. It includes 30% of the $500 million needed to update the formula.His proposal also maintains changes to how the state calculates enrollment for the purpose of the budget. In 2026-27, the state will calculate student enrollment on a three-year average instead of four-year average, which is considered more accurate.

Polis’ budget includes a $14.3 million request to increase universal preschool funding in 2026-27, but he plans to submit an updated request to the General Assembly at the beginning of the year. This year, the program cost the state about $344 million.

Polis’ budget proposal also would allow colleges and universities to increase tuition by 2.6% for in-state students and 3% for out-of-state students. State figures show that would raise about $81.9 million more for college and university operations.

Polis also wants to include $14.2 million in the budget for colleges and universities to support salary increases and help keep in-state tuition increases equal to inflation.

In past years, college and university leaders have typically banded together to argue the governor’s proposal for higher-education funding isn’t enough. Higher education leaders have said his budget proposals don’t keep up with costs and they’ve been able to secure more funding from the legislature.

Last year, education took a prominent role in the budget after Polis pitched significant changes to the state’s education funding formula. Lawmakers agreed to alter how long the formula would take to phase-in and make changes to how the state calculates student enrollment for the purposes of the budget.

Polis’ 2026-27 budget proposal will have health care implications and sets up a debate about how to slow Medicaid costs.

Medicaid expenses have grown an average of 8.8% annually over the last decade, or almost double the revenue the state government can keep under the Taxpayer’s Bill or Rights, or TABOR, according to the governor’s office.

Polis said at a news conference Friday that if Medicaid spending were left unchecked, investments elsewhere wouldn’t be possible.

“The increases in Medicaid costs would crowd out essentially everything the state does,” he said. “We would largely just run schools and Medicaid. No money for roads, no money for public safety, no money for housing. So this is what we want to avoid.”

Colorado’s legislative session won’t start until January, but state law requires the governor release a budget proposal on Nov. 1 each year for the following fiscal year. The spending proposal helps signal the governor’s priorities.

While the powerful six-member Joint Budget Committee has the most say on the budget before it’s passed by the legislature, the governor can veto the entire budget or certain appropriations.

The Joint Budget Committee uses the governor’s draft to help craft a spending proposal during the legislative session.

These Colorado schools may have to stop serving universal free meals if 2 ballot measures fail

2025-10-23T23:34:08+00:00

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About 380 Colorado schools might lose their ability to serve all students free meals if two ballot measures fail in the Nov. 4 election, state education data shows.

State lawmakers put Propositions MM and LL on the ballot to shore up Colorado’s Healthy School Meals for All program, which offers free breakfast and lunch to every student whose district opts in. But the program, which was created by a 2022 ballot measure, has proven more popular — and thus, more expensive — than expected.

This past spring, lawmakers decided to fully fund the program through the end of 2025 but then scale it back if voters don’t approve Propositions MM and LL.

Meals would still be free at schools that participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision program. To qualify for this provision, at least 25% of students must be “directly certified” to receive free meals because their families already receive public nutrition benefits, or because the students themselves are homeless or in foster care, among other criteria.

Of the 1,803 schools participating in Health School Meals for All, 1,421 are part of the Community Eligibility Provision program, according to Colorado Department of Education data. That means that if Propositions MM and LL fail, meals will still be free at almost 80% of participating Colorado schools, including traditional district-run schools, charter schools, and schools inside youth detention centers.

But families at the remaining 382 schools could end up having to pay for meals themselves, or fill out federal applications to determine if their children qualify for free or reduced-price meals based on family income.

Some of those 382 schools may still be able to get Healthy School Meals for All funding if they’re eligible for, but don’t currently participate in, the Community Eligibility Provision. Other schools might opt to foot the bill for free meals if the measures fail.

Since it started in the 2023-24 school year, the Healthy School Meals for All program’s popularity has meant higher costs than predicted.

The state needs about $150 million this year to fully fund the program, but the revenue from Proposition FF, which created the program, has fallen short.

Proposition MM asks voters for $95 million more a year for the school meals program by increasing taxes on households that make more than $300,000 a year. Money from this measure could also be used to help pay for costs related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which was cut by Congress.

And Proposition LL asks voters whether the state can keep millions in revenue raised for its popular free school meals program instead of providing taxpayer refunds.

Below is a list of schools that do and don’t participate in the Community Eligibility Provision. Only schools not participating in the provision may lose the ability to serve free meals funded by the state if Propositions MM and LL fail.

This Colorado district was sued after removing library books. It’s fundraising for legal fees.

2025-10-15T23:02:02+00:00

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The first thing visitors to the Elizabeth School District website see is a pop-up window with an unusual message: an invitation to help cover legal fees incurred in a lawsuit over library book removals.

The appeal by the 2,700-student district southeast of Denver is part of a broader effort supported by at least three conservative groups, including one led by former Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl, to raise money to defend the district against the lawsuit.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed suit against the district in December alleging that the Elizabeth school board’s vote to remove 19 books from school libraries violates federal and state free speech protections. The books, which are now back on shelves because of a court order, are primarily by or about LGBTQ people, people of color, or both.

While school district fundraisers for things like classroom supplies or field trips are common, asking parents and the public for money to pay lawyers is not. The heading on the donation page hosted by Ganahl’s group reads “Save Elizabeth School District,” with buttons underneath suggesting donations ranging from $250 to $10,000.

A conservative news outlet, Rocky Mountain Voice, is running a fundraising page for the district's legal costs.

It isn’t clear from publicly posted district financial records how much the Elizabeth School District has spent on the library book lawsuit. District officials declined to answer that question.

The plaintiffs in the case include two district students, a chapter of the NAACP, and the Authors Guild, a professional organization for writers. Their lawyers argue that the removal of the books violates federal and state free speech protections. Among the titles removed were “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, and “It’s Your World — If You Don’t Like It, Change It” by Mikki Halpin.

Lawyers for the district argue that the books were removed because of concerns they weren’t age-appropriate, lacked educational value, and included sensitive content such as graphic violence, explicit sexual references, extreme drug or alcohol use, and self harm ideation.

Elizabeth Superintendent Dan Snowberger declined a telephone interview with Chalkbeat, but wrote in a text that the district’s finances are sound and that the lawsuit’s genesis is what’s unusual about the situation.

“It’s unusual for a behemoth organization like the ACLU with a major financial war chest to come after a small rural district,” he wrote. “We will not allow them to impact the educational opportunities for our children in the district, and will do everything necessary to mobilize outside forces to protect our children.”

The Elizabeth School District has portrayed its legal fight against the ACLU as a David and Goliath story. On social media and in board meetings, some community members have supported the district’s decision to remove the books and its fight against the lawsuit. A common objection to the books is that some passages are too graphic for students, such as those that describe sexual assaults.

A pop-up window tells visitors to the Elizabeth district website how they can donate to cover legal fees.

Other community members oppose both the book removals and the fundraising campaign.

Jessica Capsel, an Elizabeth resident whose son attended school in the district until she switched him out last year, said she believes the time and money district officials are spending on the lawsuit are distracting them from educating kids.

“That pop up [window] begging for money pops up every time you change a page” on the district’s website, said Capsel, who won a lawsuit against the district over open meeting violations last spring but is not directly involved in the library book lawsuit. “So clearly that’s where their priority has been.”

Tim Macdonald, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado, said by email that the organization didn’t “come after” Elizabeth. Instead, he said, district students and families wanted the district to comply with the Constitution and stop banning books that have content or viewpoints with which board members disagree.

“Fighting for the constitutional rights of students in Colorado is how we protect children; violating their constitutional rights is not protecting children,” he wrote.

Elizabeth’s legal costs and fundraiser totals are opaque

It’s unclear how much money the Elizabeth district has spent fighting the book removal lawsuit in the 10 months since it was filed.

Financial records on the district’s website suggest modest spending on the two primary law firms representing the district. Only about $6,500 was paid to First and Fourteenth, which has a location in Colorado Springs, and nothing was paid to Mitchell Law, located in Austin, Texas, during the first six months of 2025.

The district spent about $57,000 in that same period on a third firm, Miller, Farmer, Carlson Law. That firm typically handles routine matters for the district but is also listed in court documents as representing the district in the book removal case.

It’s also unclear much money has been raised to cover legal fees for the district’s lawsuit and where that money is going.

Ganahl, whose conservative news outlet Rocky Mountain Voice is running the online donation page titled “Save Elizabeth School District,” didn’t respond to Chalkbeat questions about how much her group has raised and whether the money is being sent to the school district.

She sent a statement that said in part, “Our fundraising assistance supports the board in exercising its authority to curate age-appropriate library content, responding to parental concerns about sensitive themes like explicit content or divisive topics.”

Julian Ellis, one of the district’s lawyers from First and Fourteenth Law, also didn’t respond to emailed questions about how much money he’s collected. The district’s website lists Ellis as the person designated to receive paper checks — payable to an Alexandria, Virginia, group called the Article III Foundation — to help cover the district’s legal costs.

Lori Gimelshteyn, executive director of the parents rights group Parents United America, which hosts an online donation page for Elizabeth’s legal costs, didn’t respond to Chalkbeat questions about how much her group raised and where the money is going.

A fourth partner in the Elizabeth district’s legal fee fundraising effort is Citizens Defending Freedom, based in Mulberry, Florida. The group last Thursday held a “Protect Our Children” fundraiser for Elizabeth at a Colorado Springs church, with the ticket proceeds going to Ganahl’s group. A flyer circulating on Facebook said the cost ranged from $100 for a single ticket to $2,000 for the “platinum” package, which included 10 tickets, VIP seating, and a private reception with the four speakers.

A spokesperson for Citizens Defending Freedom referred a question from Chalkbeat about fundraising totals to Bonnie Wallace, one of the event speakers. Wallace, a legislative liaison for Recovering America, an organization that promotes Biblical values in public policy, did not respond to multiple emails from Chalkbeat.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Voter guide: Proposition MM would raise taxes of high-earners to shore up free school meals program

2025-10-10T01:15:47+00:00

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Proposition MM asks voters for the second time in three years to provide funding for free school meals by increasing taxes on households that make more than $300,000 a year

Voter guide: Proposition LL would allow Colorado to keep more funding for the Healthy School Meals for All program

The measure, on the Nov. 4 ballot, would raise up to $95 million more for Colorado’s Healthy School Meals for All program, which allows participating public K-12 districts to provide free breakfast and lunch to every student. The money could also be used for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps provide food assistance to families and was cut back by Congress.

Proposition MM asks voters a similar question as the 2022 Proposition FF ballot measure that created the Healthy School Meals for All program: Should the state limit tax deductions for households that make more than $300,000 a year? This would affect an estimated 200,000 Colorado households, or about 6% of households.

Those taxpayers would pay an average of $486 more a year, according to state numbers.

Why is this measure on the Nov. 4 ballot?

Due to the Healthy School Meals for All program’s popularity, the revenue generated by Proposition FF isn’t enough to feed every student. The state needs about $150 million this year to fund the program in its entirety, but the revenue is expected to fall short of that.

To address the shortfall, Colorado lawmakers decided to fund the program fully this year for half a year. That means every participating district will be able to feed students free breakfast and lunch through the end of 2025.

What happens after that depends on whether voters pass Proposition MM and another measure on the November ballot, Proposition LL. The two are considered a package deal.

What if Proposition MM doesn’t pass?

Colorado wouldn’t be able to continue the Healthy School Meals for All program in its entirety without the passage of Proposition MM.

In January, only schools with higher percentages of students from low-income backgrounds would still be able to still serve free meals under the deal state lawmakers struck in the spring. Families at other schools would either need to pay for meals or fill out a federal application to see if their child qualifies for free or reduced price meals.

What happens if Colorado voters approve the measure?

The state would be able to fully fund the Healthy Meals for All program as lawmakers and voters intended. That means every participating Colorado K-12 public school district would be able to continue providing free meals for every student.

Colorado lawmakers also want any excess money from Proposition MM to be used to backfill budget cuts by Congress to the federal SNAP program.

Who opposes the measure?

The state has not recorded any registered opponents, according to the secretary of state website. One group has expressed concerns.

The Common Sense Institute, which describes itself as a nonpartisan think tank, released a recent report saying the Healthy School Meals for All program is a costly endeavor and should do a better job of controlling expenses.

Who is in favor?

A broad coalition supports Proposition LL and MM.

Keep Kids Fed Colorado registered its support and lists 110 organizations across the state as part of the committee. These include hospitals, county governments, churches, teachers associations, and community advocacy organizations.

The groups include Hunger Free Colorado, Great Education Colorado, The Bell Policy Center, Colorado PTA, and the Colorado Education Association.

Voter guide: Proposition LL would allow Colorado to keep more funding for the Healthy School Meals for All program

2025-10-10T01:15:35+00:00

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Proposition LL asks voters whether Colorado can keep millions in revenue raised for its popular free school meals program instead of refunding that money back to taxpayers.

The measure, on the Nov. 4 ballot, will only affect refunds for households that make more than $300,000 a year.

Voter guide: Proposition MM would raise taxes of high-earners to shore up free school meals program

Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, requires the state to provide refunds to taxpayers if it collects more money from a ballot measure than estimated. Colorado voters approved Proposition FF in 2022, creating the Healthy School Meals for All program, which allows participating public K-12 districts to provide free breakfast and lunch to every student.

For instance, state officials had estimated Proposition FF would collect $100.7 million for the program in the 2023-24 year. Instead, the state collected about $112 million, or about $11.3 million more than expected. Proposition LL is asking if the state can keep that $11.3 million, plus $1.1 million in interest, to help fund the free school meals.

Why is this measure on the Nov. 4 ballot?

The state needs about $150 million this year to fund the Healthy School Meals for All program in its entirety. That’s more than the state collected through Proposition FF.

What happens after that depends on whether voters pass Proposition LL and another measure on the November ballot, Proposition MM. The two are considered a package deal.

What if Proposition LL doesn’t pass?

If Proposition LL doesn’t pass, the state won’t be able to keep the excess money it’s required by TABOR to send back. That also means the state would have to refund the $12.4 million from the 2023-24 year to households that make more than $300,000 a year.

What happens if Colorado voters approve the measure?

Proposition LL wouldn’t raise enough money on its own to fully fund the Healthy School Meals for All program.

However, it’s part of the equation, along with Proposition MM, to continue fully funding the program into the future.

Who opposes the measure?

The state has not recorded any registered opponents, according to the secretary of state website. One group has expressed concerns.

Who is in favor?

A broad coalition supports Proposition LL and MM.

The groups include Hunger Free Colorado, Great Education Colorado, The Bell Policy Center, Colorado PTA, and the Colorado Education Association.

More funding for Colorado schools: Coalition of liberal groups proposing new tax measure

2025-09-04T23:00:22+00:00

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A coalition of liberal groups hope to put a tax reform measure on the November 2026 ballot that could result in significant additional funding for K-12 schools and higher education.

The Protect Colorado’s Future coalition wants to amend a portion of the state’s constitution that mandates a flat income tax rate, currently set at 4.4%.

The draft measure, which the group unveiled Wednesday, would ask voters to approve a new graduated income tax. Taxes would remain at the same rate for earners making under $500,000 a year and progressively increase for earners who make above that threshold, up to 9.2% for earners who make $10 million or more. The group projects that lower earners would save several hundred dollars a year.

Protect Colorado’s Future estimates these changes would generate between $2 billion and $3 billion in new annual revenue for the state. The money would pay for K-12 education, higher education, child care, and health care. State lawmakers would decide how much to invest in each area.

Members of the coalition say the measure is necessary because the state is facing another projected revenue shortfall, exacerbated by cuts in the federal budget. State lawmakers already held an August special session to address a shortfall this year caused by federal tax policy changes. Colorado’s revenue challenges are expected to continue into the 2026-27 budget year.

“It is going to take steps toward our North Star of every student having the resources they need,” said Lisa Weil, executive director of Great Education Colorado, a member of the coalition. “It’s not going to complete the journey, but it is an absolutely critical first step.”

The coalition includes 13 advocacy groups, including the Colorado Statewide Parent Coalition, Colorado Children’s Campaign, and New Era Colorado.

Chris deGruy Kennedy, who is president of The Bell Policy Center, an organization that advocates for progressive policies and tax reforms, said a flat tax benefits wealthier residents.

The coalition has crafted multiple versions of the ballot measure to help gauge what voters want from the initiative. For instance, one version includes more funding for public safety, while another says the money should go toward workforce development.

DeGruy Kennedy said these versions might not end up as the final version that Coloradans vote on. However, the coalition’s ask to change income tax rates will remain the same in the final measure.

The next step is for the coalition to receive a ballot title and then begin to collect signatures to place one of the versions on the 2026 ballot. If it gets on the ballot and is approved by voters, the new tax structure would go into effect in 2027. The money raised would not be subject to a state cap on revenue collections within the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR.

DeGruy Kennedy said he wants the measure to act as the beginning of a public conversation about public benefits that he sees as underfunded in the state. Asking voters to invest in education is within each of the proposals.

Weil pointed out that Colorado lawmakers have struggled to greatly increase funding for K-12 and higher education.

During economic downturns, lawmakers have cut state spending on college and university budgets, which has shifted tuition costs onto families.

Lawmakers also spent less than constitutionally required on K-12 schools for 14 years through a mechanism known as the budget stabilization factor, which pulled school funding for other budget priorities. Schools lost out on over $10 billion from 2009 to 2023.

Although lawmakers ended that practice, their promises to increase K-12 funding have hit snags.

Last year, state lawmakers created a new K-12 funding formula that calls for Colorado to invest $500 million more a year in its schools. But the timeline to phase in the money has already been extended by legislators due to budget challenges.

Even that investment isn’t enough, according to studies commissioned by state lawmakers. The studies found that Colorado should invest another $3.5 billion to $4 billion a year on top of the formula changes to adequately meet students’ learning needs.

The ballot measure is sure to receive conservative opposition. Conservative groups are proposing ballot measures that would cut income tax rates, similar to those approved in 2020 and 2022.

Weil said she hopes the coalition can make the case for its measure. Without the money, she said there’s a huge risk to the state’s education system.

“Colorado is at a moment where we have to decide who we are, who we want to be, and how to meet a very challenging moment,” she said. “And I believe that Colorado values public education.”

Colorado’s Proposition MM will now ask voters to fund free school meals, SNAP benefits

2025-08-25T20:48:29+00:00

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A question before Colorado voters this November will now have two parts: Should the state raise taxes on higher-income earners to pay for free school meals? And should the state use any excess revenue to shore up federal food benefits that will face cuts next year?

Colorado lawmakers voted Sunday in a special session to expand Proposition MM, which will appear on the November ballot. Senate Bill 3 now also adds a provision to MM that any excess funding would be spent on the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The ballot measure will still ask voters to approve about $95 million in new taxes for the state’s Healthy School Meals for All program by increasing income taxes on households earning $300,000 or more annually.

Lawmakers gave the legislation final approval in the House with a party-line 44-17 vote. The bill is headed to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk for his signature.

Lawmakers have been meeting since Thursday in the special session called by Polis to address a state funding shortfall caused by the 2026 federal budget’s change to tax code law. Colorado’s tax code mirrors the federal code, and federal changes mean less corporate tax revenue for the state.

Lawmakers are considering tax code changes during the special session and have also approved spending on certain health care programs, such as Planned Parenthood.

The 2026 budget bill approved by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump makes numerous changes to SNAP, including new work requirements for recipients and higher administrative costs for states.

Colorado Democratic lawmakers filed Senate Bill 3 to prevent more than 300,000 low-income Colorado families, including many children, adults with disabilities, and elderly people, from having their food benefits reduced. The state would use extra revenue from Proposition MM to ensure SNAP recipients get the same level of benefits as before.

“Families struggling with food insecurity should never have to worry about when their next meal will be, which is why Colorado Democrats helped create the Healthy School Meals for All program and have continuously invested in programs like SNAP and EBT,” said state Rep. Katie Stewart, a Democratic bill sponsor.

Other bill sponsors include Democratic state Sens. Katie Wallace and Dafna Michaelson-Jeent and Democratic state Rep. Lorena García.

The bill first fully covers the Healthy School Meals for All program, which has been more popular and cost more than expected. Then the state can use extra funding to counteract SNAP program cuts.

The bill is supported by food advocacy and county government groups. School officials and advocacy groups did not oppose the legislation. However, behind the scenes, some school leaders worried broadening the ballot measure to include SNAP funding might cause some voters to vote no.

That’s especially a concern because the future of the Healthy School Meals for All program depends on Proposition MM and its companion, Proposition LL, passing.

The program has been extremely popular since schools started to serve free meals in 2023, but due to costs, Colorado lawmakers decided to only fund the program through December of this school year. The state would scale back the program in January if the initiatives don’t pass.

Schools that currently participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision program, which provides funding for free meals at the country’s lowest-income schools, would still qualify for meals free of charge. Schools where at least 25% of the student population qualifies for free or reduced-price lunch because they’re eligible for SNAP or Medicaid would also continue to receive state funding.

Students at schools that don’t meet either criterion would have to fill out a federal form to receive free or reduced-priced meals.

Aurora’s Laredo Elementary is back in class and dreaming of a new building thanks to $1 billion bond

2025-08-08T23:03:40+00:00

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At Aurora’s Laredo Elementary, the tidy library is shaped like a trapezoid because it used to be the auditorium.

And the cafeteria, which smelled of chicken nuggets on the first Friday of the school year, has basketball hoops hanging from the ceiling because it was once the multipurpose room.

Some classrooms don’t have windows. The brightly decorated hallways are narrow. And the fifth graders learn in trailers outside, which means the 10- and 11-year-olds must use a key card to bop into the main building whenever they have to use the bathroom.

The hodgepodge of spaces, as Principal Haleh Torbaghan affectionately calls it, is a result of several add-ons, expansions, and trying to shoehorn 21st century programming into a mid-20th century building. But all of that will soon change.

Third grade students walk back to class after physical education class on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025 at Laredo Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado.

Using funding from a $1 billion bond measure passed by voters last November, Aurora Public Schools is planning to rebuild Laredo Elementary on the same plot of land where the circa-1967 building now stands in the western part of the city.

“The beauty of this rebuild is that it provides equity,” said Jen Koeppe, the director of construction management and support for Aurora Public Schools.

“We can’t just put all the new stuff where it’s developing,” she said, referring to new housing developments being built in the eastern part of Aurora.

As students across Colorado return to school this month, some districts are reaping the benefits of voter-approved tax measures. The $1 billion measure in Aurora was the largest school bond in state history, and it will pay for a variety of projects, including a renovation of Gateway High, the construction of new schools in growing east Aurora, and the rebuild of Laredo Elementary.

With about 450 students, Laredo is diverse. About 65% of students are Latino, 14% are Black, and 5% are Asian, Torbaghan said. Nearly 9 of 10 qualify for subsidized school meals, an indicator of poverty. And more than 60% are multilingual students learning English as a second language.

Third grade students line up after physical education class on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025 at Laredo Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado.

Laredo has a psychologist and social worker, a robust team of special education teachers and paraprofessionals, several math and reading interventionists, a health clinic, English and cooking classes for parents, and child care for younger siblings during those classes. But Torbaghan said the building doesn’t necessarily have the proper spaces to house all of the school’s programming.

Small or odd-shaped classrooms have been repurposed to serve as intervention spaces, with cloth dividers separating the rooms into several nooks. A lack of storage space means there are sometimes supplies piled in the hallways. The parent classes happen in the trailers outside.

“Just because it might be the underserved community, it doesn’t need to feel like that,” Torbaghan said. “They shouldn’t be used to having an old building.”

The new building will be two stories high, with taller ceilings and big windows that bathe the hallways and classrooms in natural light, Koeppe said. To allow for continued enrollment growth, the new school will have four classrooms per grade instead of the three it has now, plus a second all-day preschool classroom and a new STEM lab.

The parent classes will move inside, as will Laredo’s food pantry and free clothing bank. Torbaghan also envisions a space to host the school’s monthly parent coffee meetings, which she said consistently draw more than 30 families.

The exterior of Laredo Elementary School, seen on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025 in Aurora, Colorado.

Laredo sits on a big plot of land, and the construction of the new school will happen while students are still attending the old one, which will eventually be torn down. The rebuild will cost an estimated $52 million, Koeppe said, and should be completed by the fall of 2028.

Torbaghan said she didn’t realize how much the design of a building mattered until she visited some newer schools where the classrooms were bright and the acoustics were pleasing.

“At first I was like, ‘Is that really going to matter?’” she said. “But after you see it in the schools, you’re like, ‘Oh man. Our kids really do need and deserve that.’”

That’s not to say there isn’t joy at Laredo now. Lyndy Huffman’s first grade class occupies one of the classrooms without windows. On Friday morning, her students gathered on the rug to listen to her read “We Don’t Eat Our Classmates,” a picture book about a dinosaur whose first day of school is complicated by the fact that she finds her human classmates delicious.

“Would you be surprised if a dinosaur came to your classroom?” Huffman asked her students.

“Noooo!” a chorus of kids said.

When Huffman looked surprised, a few students piped up with an enthusiastic “Yes!”

“Only a baby dinosaur,” one boy clarified.

Due to incorrect information from a source, this story has been updated to reflect that the new Laredo Elementary School will open in 2028, not 2027.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

‘Very relieved’: Colorado to receive remaining education funds withheld by Trump administration

2025-07-25T22:45:13+00:00

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With the news Friday that the Trump administration plans to release all of the federal education funds that it has withheld from states since July 1, Lake County School District Superintendent Kate Bartlett said it feels like she’s emerging from a time machine.

All of the scrambling and contingency planning she did for the past several weeks is over.

“It’s almost like we’ve been transported back in time to June 29,” Bartlett said.

That was the day before the Trump administration announced it was withholding nearly $7 billion in federal education funds earmarked for teacher training, immigrant students, after-school programming, and more. Colorado was slated to receive nearly $80 million.

The federal Office of Management and Budget said it was withholding the money to review that it wasn’t being used to subsidize a left-wing agenda.

A week ago, the OMB said it would release $1.3 billion in 21st Century Community Learning Centers funding, which pays for before- and after-school programming, after a review of those funds. For Colorado, that meant a release of nearly $13 million.

On Friday, Colorado officials learned the other nearly $67 million in withheld federal dollars would also be released. Based on last year’s funding levels, it is expected to include:

About $26 million for recruiting, retaining, and training teachers and reducing class sizes. School districts use this funding in a variety of ways, including by offering incentives to teachers who work in high-needs schools or teach hard-to-staff subjects.
About $13.5 million for supporting a well-rounded education. This funding pays for student mental health services, music and arts programs, and STEM initiatives.
About $11.2 million for multilingual learners and immigrant students. Districts use this money to hire and train bilingual teachers and buy textbooks and other materials.
About $8.8 million for adult education. This money funds programs that help adults improve their literacy, learn English, gain workforce skills, and more.
About $7.2 million for migrant students. This money is meant to support the children of farmworkers and is used to pay for health screenings, summer programs, and mental health support for students who experience frequent moves.

“While I am thrilled this funding has been returned to our students, this uncertainty created significant chaos for families and schools with the school year only weeks away,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement. Most Colorado schools start in August.

Polis repeatedly urged the Trump administration to release the funds and was one of 18 governors who sent a letter last week making that demand. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser joined a lawsuit filed by 24 states and the District of Columbia to restore the funding.

For the Lake County School District in the Colorado mountains, the restored funding means it won’t have to cut its crucial after-school programming. The 900-student district was banking on nearly $400,000 in federal 21st Century dollars to help pay for the popular program, which is used by most students. As one of several districts in Colorado that has a four-day school week, Lake County also runs programming on Fridays when there is no school.

Bartlett said the district is “very relieved” that the funding will come through.

“That’s been a huge weight off of our shoulders,” she said.

And while the withholding was difficult, Bartlett said she sees a silver lining in that it “forced a national conversation of the importance of these funds for kids and families.

“Would I have wished to go through this past three and half weeks of deep uncertainty? No,” Bartlett said. “But in a way, what we learned from it was we maybe got a little more clear on our shared values of what these funding streams provide for kids.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Trump withholding $76M from Colorado puts immigrant student support at risk

2025-07-09T23:09:55+00:00

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To serve an influx of new immigrant students, Jeffco Public Schools came up with an innovative idea last year: retrofitting a school bus to serve as a mobile welcome center. When new families arrive, a small team that speaks multiple languages shows up to help the family not only enroll in school but access basic needs like diapers and baby formula.

As a result of the Trump administration withholding $76 million in federal education dollars from Colorado, Jeffco Superintendent Tracy Dorland said the mobile welcome center is one of several programs at risk of losing its funding.

“We have newcomers all across Jeffco, so being able to have a mobile team that’s pretty flexible and can go to the families has been a game changer for us,” Dorland said, noting that the district, the state’s second largest, spans 800 square miles and 150 schools.

“Asking families to come to a centralized location doesn’t work for our newcomer families,” she said. “It’s one of the things I’m most worried about.”

Dorland spoke Wednesday at a roundtable discussion hosted by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis about the impact of the withheld funds. The Trump administration announced last week that it was holding back nearly $7 billion nationwide to ensure the money is spent according to the president’s priorities and not “to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.” States were expecting to receive the funds July 1.

Some of the withheld funding is earmarked to support immigrant students, English language learners, and students whose parents are migrant farmworkers. Other funds pay for after-school and summer programs. Another pot of money is for teacher recruitment and training.

The Colorado Department of Education released a map this week showing how much funding each of the state’s 179 school districts stands to lose. Denver Public Schools would be out $11.9 million, according to the map. Jeffco Public Schools is waiting on nearly $3 million.

Polis called the withholding “absurd,” emphasizing that Colorado school districts were banking on these funds and have already set up programs and hired staff.

“You have teachers who don’t know if they have jobs at this point,” Polis said.

Dorland and other district leaders mostly declined to say how many staff members could lose their jobs if the funding doesn’t come through. But they said the timeline for making those decisions is as tight as 10 days from now.

Simone Wright, chief of academics for Denver Public Schools, gave one example: the equivalent of 11.3 full-time positions that are funded with Title III dollars. The educators in those positions help principals, deans, and teachers support students learning English as a second language. In DPS, that’s about a third of the district’s 90,000 students.

“For some districts, it’s a subgroup,” Wright said of multilingual learners. “For us, it’s who we serve.”

Katie Allen, a third grade teacher at Denver’s Florida Pitt-Waller ECE-8 School, spends half of her day coaching other teachers, including the school’s English language development teachers. She said losing that centralized district support would be “devastating.”

“I can see a lot of students slipping through the cracks if we don’t have those layers of support built around the classroom,” said Michelle Horwitz, a bilingual speech language pathologist at Bryant-Webster Dual Language ECE-8 School in Denver.

“Educators are tired of doing more with less,” Horwitz said.

Stuart Jenkins, the executive director of the Boys & Girls Clubs in Colorado, said the clubs in the metro areas of Denver and Pueblo were supposed to receive a combined $1.9 million in federal after-school funding to serve more than 2,000 children across 13 sites.

The two school districts in Pueblo, in the southern part of the state, have four-day school weeks, making the Boys & Girls Club programming even more essential there, he said.

“We worry these kids will have no safe space to go in Pueblo if these funds don’t come through,” Jenkins said, noting that many of the children are living in poverty.

Polis said he and other state leaders are urging the Trump administration to release the funds and are considering all options, including possible legal action. Asked if Colorado could make up the federal shortfall with state money, Polis said no.

“There is no additional money to spend,” he said.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school districts worry about ‘unconscionable’ withholding of federal education funding

2025-07-02T22:43:13+00:00

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The small 900-student Lake County School District in the Colorado mountains may have to cut its after-school programming. A popular dual language program in the 3,500-student Fort Morgan district could take a funding hit. And stipends for paraprofessionals training to become teachers in the 90,000-student Denver Public Schools may be at risk.

All of those programs are funded with federal dollars that were expected to arrive this week but didn’t. In total, Colorado hasn’t received about $70 million in federal education funds after the Trump administration refused to release billions in K-12 dollars on July 1.

The U.S. Department of Education told state officials that it is withholding the money to ensure it’s spent according to the president’s priorities, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education said. The uncertainty is causing concern among school officials who may have to gut programs for some of their most vulnerable students if the money doesn’t show up.

“The idea of not fully serving my kids and families absolutely wrenches my heart, and I just want people to understand that we’re going to do everything we can do to minimize disruptions,” said Kate Bartlett, the Lake County superintendent.

“But I’ve got to be real,” she said. “I think it’s going to be a disruptive period.”

The estimate that Colorado could be short $70 million in federal funds for the 2025-26 school year comes from the Colorado Department of Education and is based on funding levels from 2024-25, which were expected to hold steady. The $70 million includes:

About $11.2 million to support multilingual learners and immigrant students. This federal funding is distributed to Colorado’s 179 school districts based on each district’s count of students learning English as a second language. Districts use the money to hire and train bilingual teachers and buy textbooks and other materials.
About $7.2 million to support migrant students. This money is not for the influx of new immigrants from South America that Colorado experienced over the past few years. Rather, it is meant to support the children of farmworkers. It’s distributed to districts based on student counts and used to pay for health screenings, summer programs, and mental health support for migrant students who experience frequent moves.
About $26 million to recruit, retain, and train teachers and reduce class sizes. Districts use this funding in a variety of ways, including by offering incentives to teachers who work in high-needs schools or teach hard-to-staff subjects.
About $13 million for before- and after-school programs, summer programs, tutoring, clubs, and other enrichment activities, primarily for students from low-income families.

The Trump administration is withholding a total of nearly $7 billion in federal funding for K-12 schools. The funds were approved by Congress earlier this year, and states and school districts were relying on the money for this upcoming school year.

Melissa Gibson, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, called the withholding “unconscionable.” She said her organization has been fielding phone calls from Colorado superintendents worried about how they’ll fill the gaps and how they’ll break the news to their teachers, families, and students if they can’t.

“This is going to force some really painful decisions,” Gibson said.

Two-thirds of Lake County’s after-school programming is funded by nearly $400,000 in federal money that is now being withheld, Bartlett said. The programming is both popular and crucial: Most students use it because their parents commute long distances to work, she said. Students stay after school to build robots, learn to play the bagpipes, and get homework help. Most programs are free and feed students an after-school snack and a to-go dinner.

As one of the many Colorado districts on a four-day school week, Lake County also runs programs on Fridays when there is no school.

Bartlett said the withholding of federal funds will have a ripple effect.

“Of course it impacts kids,” she said, “but then it impacts families and the broader economy. If suddenly your kid is not in a safe and fun place until 6 o’clock at night but instead they are done at 3:45, it puts a lot of pressure on families and ultimately, the economy.”

Denver Public Schools, Colorado’s largest district, stands to lose about $10 million if the federal funds continue to be withheld, said Chuck Carpenter, the district’s chief of finance.

That money is earmarked for teacher training, multilingual learners, and after-school programs. If the funding doesn’t come through, the district will have to make cuts, Carpenter said.

“This is a defunding of programming for 5- to 18-year-olds,” he said. “We’re taking money we were giving to children and saying this isn’t important anymore.”

In a joint statement, Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero and Denver school board president Carrie Olson called the move “a dangerous overreach of federal authority.”

“For our Latino, Black, and multilingual learners — and all students served in historically underfunded districts — this delay threatens core programming,” Marrero and Olson said. “It weakens our national commitment to equity and public trust in government.”

Rob Sanders, the superintendent of Morgan County School District Re-3 in Fort Morgan, said his district is waiting on about $285,000 in federal education funds. In addition to offsetting costs in its popular dual language program, Sanders said his district uses the money to pay for instructional coaches and paraprofessionals.

“We already passed our budgets,” Sanders said. “We’ve already offered positions to people, they’ve already accepted, and now we’re looking at a shortfall of $285,000.

“I do believe at some point that they’ll release the funds,” he said of the federal government. “It’s all about sowing chaos, and I don’t think that chaos is good.”

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado’s 2025-26 budget has more money for schools, but it’s less than was promised

2025-04-23T20:43:07+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers approved a state budget for next year that has more money for colleges, universities, and K-12 schools. But the increase is less than what was promised or requested.

Lawmakers finalized the $43.9 billion spending plan for the 2025-26 year earlier this week after months of debate about how to close a $1.2 billion spending shortfall. The shortfall was caused by increased costs for programs such as Medicaid and voter-approved caps on state spending.

Lawmakers had promised more funding for K-12 schools through a school finance formula rewrite last year. But the shortfall means the increase will be about $16 million less than originally expected.

Colleges and universities will also get far less than higher education leaders requested. Instead, lawmakers will allow them more flexibility in raising tuition rates to cover expenses.

The budget also provides increases for the state’s early childhood initiatives.

Gov. Jared Polis will need to sign the budget bill to give it final approval.

Here’s what’s in the 2025-26 budget:

The budget will bring total K-12 state and district spending to $10 billion next year and increase spending per student to an average of $11,852, or an increase of $412 over the $11,440 average this year. The budget includes about $256 million more in state spending than last year.
Almost every school district, except for 21 that have declining enrollment, will get a funding increase. The state funds schools on a per-student basais, but a “hold harmless” provision means the 21 districts with declining enrollment won’t get less funding.
Colorado will cap the Building Excellent Schools Today grant program, which helps districts fund construction projects, at $150 million, saving $45 million next year.
The budget and an accompanying bill still under consideration propose to fund the Healthy School Meals for All program, which provides free school lunches for every student, for only half of the 2025-26 school year and decrease the number of eligible schools statewide. Lawmakers want to get a measure before voters in November to increase funding for the program, which would eliminate the need to scale it back.
Lawmakers made cuts to school grant programs. For instance, the state will save $5 million by reducing high-impact tutoring program grants.
Colleges and universities will get $38.4 million more next year for operations and student financial aid, bringing higher education general fund spending, which includes museums, to about $1.7 billion. The $38.4 million increase is less than the additional $95 million that school leaders said they need.
Colleges and universities will be allowed to increase resident and non-resident tuition by 3.5% next year. Those increases would allow schools to collect about $3 billion total in tuition next year.
The state will spend about $14 million more on the Department of Early Childhood, bringing total spending to $802 million. That includes $318 million more in general fund spending, or about $24 million more than last year.
The state’s Universal Preschool Program, which offers free preschool to all 4-year-olds in the state, will get $6 million more next year for its operations.
The budget also increases funding for the state’s Early Intervention program by $12.6 million. The program provides support services for babies and toddlers with disabilities or those at risk of developmental delays.
And lawmakers preserved a pilot program that increases wages for some child care workers across the state. The state will spend $2.9 million to continue the program.

This story has been updated to reflect that state colleges and universities will be allowed to raise resident tuition by 3.5%. An earlier version of this story had an incorrect number due to an error in a state memo.

Colorado spent $2 million studying education funding. Lawmakers don’t want it to go to waste.

2025-04-17T21:23:18+00:00

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Two years ago, Colorado paid for a pair of studies that calculated the cost of providing an adequate education to all students in the state. The price tag for those studies: $2 million.

This year’s tight budget has made it nearly impossible to make progress on adding the billions more per year the studies said is needed. But lawmakers don’t want the studies to be ignored — and taxpayer money go to waste.

On Wednesday, Senate lawmakers approved a resolution promising to take “concrete steps to gain an understanding of the findings and recommendations of the studies, choose which study’s methodology and recommendations to follow, and develop a multi-year implementation plan.”

The resolution passed with a 27 to 5 vote and has sponsors in the House, but has not been considered there yet.

While resolutions don’t have the same teeth as laws, Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat who sponsored the measure, said lawmakers are now on the record letting education advocacy and policy groups know they want to figure out the issue. Those groups have called on lawmakers to dig into the studies.

Kipp said lawmakers don’t have a plan for next steps after a busy legislative session that will end in early May. Yet she doesn’t want anyone to think lawmakers’ work will be done.

“It’s up to us to get involved with these groups,” Kipp said. “We have to go out there and do that groundwork.”

Lawmakers received the studies at the beginning of the year.

One study from education research firm Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc. says the state would need $3.5 billion more a year and send more money to districts to figure out how best to educate students. The other from the American Institutes for Research says the state would need $4.1 billion more annually and increase spending specifically for students with the highest needs.

Both studies say the state should increase funding for teacher salaries, lower classroom sizes, and improve resources for student learning.

The studies don’t say how lawmakers should raise money, but typically lawmakers would create what’s called an interim committee to dig into the issue. However, to save money, legislative leaders decided to cut those committees, which meet between sessions.

Historically, lawmakers have struggled to greatly increase funding for schools

In fact, this year is the first time lawmakers were able to fully fund education after almost 15 years of pulling away state-mandated funding for other budget priorities. And because of a shortfall, lawmakers weren’t able to increase education funding for next year as much as they’d promised.

Kipp said raising $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion more per year just for education would be very difficult for the state, especially because budget issues are expected to get worse in 2026 and beyond.

Some lawmakers, including Kipp, have said they’d like to eliminate or find a workaround to the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a constitutional amendment that limits revenue and spending. To do that, lawmakers would need to place a ballot measure before voters that typically don’t approve raising taxes, even for schools.

“So the question is: do we starve everything else and put money into education?” she said. “Or do we go out and make the case to voters?”

A Colorado student group inspired these 7 state laws. Now it stands to lose that power.

2025-04-11T19:21:13+00:00

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State Rep. Hugh McKean saw a problem. Although Colorado had an outlet for students to talk with lawmakers about issues relevant to them, those conversations happened near the end of the legislative session, and the students’ priorities often got lost.

So in 2019, the late Republican lawmaker from Loveland helped pass a law to revamp the Colorado Youth Advisory Council. It allowed students to meet before the legislative session to discuss priorities and present policy proposals, with up to three getting drafted into bills.

“They can come and present their ideas and refine those ideas right here in the Capitol,” McKean said at the time.

But now, after six years of being able to draft real bills that have a shot at becoming law, COYAC is expected to lose that power. What started as a conversation among state lawmakers about cutting about $50,000 to run the program amid a $1.2 billion budget shortfall this year turned into altering the program after Republican leadership said it has strayed away from its original mission.

Republican leadership also said that legislators are paying for the group to draft laws — a few of which conservative lawmakers, who are in the minority, have opposed. They’ve argued the legislature doesn’t do that for other groups.

The program was created in 2008 by former Durango Republican Rep. Ellen Roberts and brings together 40 students between the ages of 14 and 19 from Colorado’s 35 Senate districts and the Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute tribes. Students serve two-year terms.

Since 2019, student ideas have inspired more than a dozen bills, including the three under consideration this year. One proposal would reduce food waste in schools. Another bill would have students on the council advise lawmakers on the youth opioid crisis.

Sarah Moss, COYAC director, has pointed out how valuable the program is to the students. She’s pleaded with lawmakers to keep it, because students learn about the legislative process, how to talk with lawmakers, and other valuable skills.

While the program will go on helping students learn and experience the legislative process, it’s clear students won’t be able to get legislation in front of lawmakers any longer. With that power gone, here are seven of the most significant laws that the council has helped inspire:

Student preferred names

One of the council’s more contentious bills, House Bill 24-1039 was an effort by students to support transgender youth and protect them from bullying.

The law says educators must call students by their preferred name upon request. Supporters said it reduces discrimination against transgender students and creates a more inclusive environment statewide. Colorado House and Senate Democrats, who are in the majority, overwhelmingly supported the bill.

Meanwhile, opponents at the time pushed back because they felt it would infringe on educator and parent rights.

College financial assistance for foster youth

In 2021, COYAC students recognized that students in the foster care system had trouble getting to college. Citing a report from the University of Denver’s Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab, they highlighted that only 13.4% of students who entered foster care at age 13 enrolled in college by age 21.

Their focus on the issue helped lawmakers file Senate Bill 22-008. The law sets aside $5 million a year in financial aid support for the about 4,500 foster kids statewide who might decide to go to college.

Student mental health resources

COYAC students had a hand in the information on Colorado student identification cards.

House Bill 22-1052 requires the identification cards to include the number, the website, and text to talk number of the 24-hour state’s crisis service center and Safe2Tell, a violence intervention and prevention program for students to anonymously report threats.

Eating disorder prevention

Colorado residents also have resources about eating disorders thanks to student ideas.

Senate Bill 23-014 created the Disordered Eating Prevention Program within the Department of Public Health and Environment, as well as a research grant that helped fund studies on the impacts and how to prevent eating disorders.

The program holds information for Colorado residents on interventions, treatments, and other educational resources. Budget cuts will eliminate the program next year.

Student voice in academic standards review

Senate Bill 23-008 created opportunities for students to get involved in the state’s education standards review, giving students a voice in what they learn.

Student discipline review committee

A COYAC idea helped the state dig into discipline practices and whether certain groups of students were being disproportionately disciplined. Senate Bill 23-029 created a task force made up of 18 members and charged with reviewing discipline data and policies. It released a final report in August.

Free menstrual products in schools

Colorado schools are required to provide free menstrual products in school bathrooms after House Bill 24-1164.

The law ramps up how much schools must provide. For instance, schools must provide at least 25% of applicable student bathrooms in all applicable school buildings by June 30.

Colorado districts speak in favor of a school funding proposal that would avoid big cuts

2025-04-08T00:54:25+00:00

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A school funding compromise bill passed its first hearing Monday, with the support of many district leaders and advocates in Colorado who testified that it would limit cuts during a difficult budget year.

House Bill 1320, known as the School Finance Act, would scale back previously approved changes to the state’s school funding formula in order to save money while also appeasing districts worried about a proposal from Democratic Gov. Jared Polis that would have reduced funding to districts with declining enrollment.

Colorado Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, spent weeks working on the compromise, and numerous school district leaders said they felt the proposal found a middle ground. School leaders from districts such as Cañon City, Greeley, and Colorado Springs testified in favor of the bill during the Monday hearing.

“We’re appreciative of the direction this bill is heading,” said Aurora Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Brett Johnson. “We’re also appreciative of the level of outreach that the sponsors have afforded the K-12 community.”

The bill, which included several amendments, passed the House Education Committee with a unanimous vote. The bill is sponsored by McCluskie, state Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat who chairs the committee, as well as Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, and state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat.

The bill will now be heard in the House Appropriations Committee before being heard on the House floor. After, the bill will be sent to the Senate for consideration.

District leaders and education groups also testified Monday that the changes maintain some stability for schools after uncertainty about how lawmakers might curtail spending in the face of a $1.2 billion budget shortfall in the 2025-26 budget year.

The bill will slow the phase-in of $500 million more in state funding for a new funding formula from six years to seven years. The state would spend 15% of the total cost of enacting the formula next year.

Overall, the proposal sends about $256 million more to schools next year through a mix of new money and state education savings, according to a legislative fiscal analysis. The funding would be about $16 million less than what was called for in the funding formula approved last year.

The investment would increase total education funding to $10 billion statewide and would set per pupil funding at $11,852 statewide, according to the fiscal analysis.

Last year’s funding formula revamp based districts’ funding on a four-year student enrollment average. House Bill 1320 wouldn’t change enrollment calculations next year or the four-year average, which would soften the funding blow for districts with declining enrollment.

The bill would then reduce the average to three years in 2026-27, unless the state’s education savings drops below $200 million.

Some district leaders have adamantly disagreed with any change to enrollment calculations, an idea first proposed by Polis. He said the change would eliminate funding for “ghost students,” or students who are still counted as part of a district’s population despite leaving years ago.

Polis said his proposal would save the state money, but school districts with declining enrollment have pointed out it would also disproportionately impact their state funding.

One of the amendments to the bill would create a state working group with an association that represents Colorado school officials to help figure out how to address student averaging in future years.

The bill also said no school district would get less money than the 2024-25 fiscal year. A fiscal analysis concluded that 21 districts would see no increase in state funding over this year because their enrollment is on the decline. Those schools would have received less money without the “hold harmless” provision.

The bill also includes an amendment that would cap the Building Excellent Schools Tomorrow grant program, which helps districts fund construction projects, at $150 million. The state would save $45 million next year, which could then be used for school operations.

While the bill received favorable support, some lawmakers worried about the long-term financial impact. State Rep. Eliza Hamrick, a Centennial Democrat, questioned how the state would sustain funding into future years, especially because budget scenarios forecast future shortfalls.

The bill would use the State Education Fund, which is a type of state savings account specifically for education, to partially fund schools next year. Money in the savings isn’t a recurring source of funding, however, and lawmakers have worried that the pot of money could run dry.

“I don’t want to drain the State Education Fund,” Hamrick said. “I look forward to working with sponsors to find sustainability.”

McCluskie said during the testimony that the state’s budget woes are expected to continue — but those funding challenges shouldn’t stop the passage of the bill. Budget modeling indicates the state will be able to cover the changes for the next three years, she said, but lawmakers will need to review the plan every year because of future budget constraints.

House Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, said the changes the bill calls for need to happen this year and lawmakers have to figure out more sustainable funding for schools into the future.

“We cannot keep operating like this,” Bacon said.

‘This whole disaster’: Colorado lawmakers vexed by state agency’s missteps on early intervention

2025-04-03T23:18:56+00:00

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In late winter, Jeff Bridges got word that state-funded therapy for his 1-year-old son, who was born prematurely, would be slashed by half starting in July.

Bridges was upset. But he had a better reason than most parents to be caught off guard.

That’s because the Democratic state lawmaker is the head of a powerful legislative committee that makes key decisions about state spending. Members of that committee had repeatedly promised to protect funding for Colorado’s $87 million Early Intervention program. The program provides therapy and related services to babies and toddlers with developmental delays — including Bridges’ son.

Bridges shared the story in a recent Joint Budget Committee hearing where he and other members, both Democrats and Republicans, slammed the Colorado Department of Early Childhood, which administers the program, for poor communication and planning.

“This is one of those places where, if we could punish the department without hurting kids, man oh man, would I be on board with that,” he said.

The committee members’ sharp words that March day raised questions about the early childhood department’s leadership and capacity, with lawmakers expressing concern that the state’s youngest and most vulnerable residents could suffer because of internal problems at the department.

For now, no significant cuts to Early Intervention are planned, either this spring or for the new fiscal year, which starts in July. That’s sure to be a relief to the tens of thousands of Colorado families whose children get free therapies through the program. In addition, Joint Budget Committee members have demanded better communication from the department, and department officials have signaled they’ll comply.

Officials from the Department of Early Childhood, which was created in 2022 and is headed by Lisa Roy, declined an interview request from Chalkbeat.

They sent a statement on Thursday, saying, in part, “The Department is set to present an update to the [Joint Budget Committee] in the first weeks of June with recommendations for the financial sustainability of the program, incorporating feedback from families and providers. Current early intervention services will continue unchanged as a result of the JBC’s action to identify additional funding for the program.”

Families were surprised by planned service cuts

The uproar over Early Intervention began in late February when the Department of Early Childhood made an abrupt announcement. Starting in March, a $4 million funding shortfall meant therapies would be capped at four hours a month, a fraction of what many children were receiving.

State officials said the shortfall was partly caused by a growing caseload in Early Intervention, which serves about 11,000 children a month. The expiration of federal COVID stimulus funds and the fact that fewer children are eligible for Medicaid, a federal health insurance program that helps pay for the therapies, also contributed to budget problems.

Department officials, in the statement sent Thursday, said they had difficulty accurately projecting Early Intervention caseload increases because eligibility rules for the program changed in 2020 and 2023, and because far more children have been screened for delays in the last two years.

After the late February announcement about impending cuts, parents and Early Intervention providers were outraged and tearful, with many contacting lawmakers and the media to describe the damage the cuts would do.

The Joint Budget Committee acted quickly to stave off the cuts this spring. At the same time, committee members chastised department officials for not letting them know about the potential shortfall sooner.

“Why didn’t somebody come over here and say, ‘We got a perfect storm. We need your help?‘” Republican Rep. Rick Taggart asked a department official at a Feb. 27 committee meeting.

“Nothing, crickets. And yet, we’ve got to find out about it through the press and through our constituents and providers that could be devastated,” he said. “This is just unbelievable to me.”

The committee meeting ended on a calmer note, with Bridges urging department officials to keep committee members in the loop.

“We are six human beings that folks can talk to, and we desire information, and want to make sure that things like this don’t happen when we can avoid it,” he said.

Even bigger Early Intervention problems emerge

A couple weeks after the February budget committee meeting, the Early Intervention issue blew up again — this time, prompting even more wrath from committee members.

On March 14, the committee heard from a legislative analyst that the program would need more than $16 million to prevent cuts for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

“Awesome,” said Bridges sarcastically. Ten minutes later, he recounted learning about potential Early Intervention cuts planned for July from his son’s physical therapist.

During that meeting, committee members unanimously approved more than $16 million to plug the program’s looming funding hole for 2025-26. They also thanked the legislative analyst for trying to forecast how the Early Intervention caseload would grow in the coming year, but expressed irritation that early childhood department staff hadn’t done it themselves.

Democratic Rep. Emily Sirota, who called the Early Intervention saga “this whole disaster,” noted that worried families were still contacting her, fearful their kids would lose important therapies.

“Hopefully today, we can make people feel a little bit more at ease that their littlest ones will continue to get the services that they need,” she said. “But the communication and the lack of work and transparency with us has been disappointing, to say the least.”

Bridges noted he’d spoken to Roy, the department’s director, that day.

He said, “I do feel … the department recognizes the massive failures” that prompted the last-minute fixes by the budget committee.

In recent weeks, the department has held feedback sessions with parents and Early Intervention providers and promised to improve its caseload forecasting with help from other state agencies.

In June, the department is scheduled to report back to the Joint Budget Committee.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado House Speaker’s school finance plan seeks a compromise on enrollment-averaging

2025-04-02T00:35:22+00:00

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In an eagerly awaited email, Colorado Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie told school district leaders Tuesday that proposed legislation she’s crafted would avoid steep funding drops for districts with declining enrollment.

For weeks, McCluskie has negotiated the deal, which would scale back promised financial increases for Colorado schools. The bill represents a compromise between the funding boost that school districts agreed to as part of a funding formula change last year and the savings that Gov. Jared Polis and lawmakers said are necessary due to the state facing a $1.2 billion budget hole next year.

McCluskie filed the legislation, known as the School Finance Act, on Wednesday. The bill proposes rolling out the state’s new school funding formula over seven years instead of six, which means districts will see their per-pupil dollars increase more slowly.

The proposal would then slowly change the way the state calculates enrollment, moving from a four-year average to a three-year average, which could mean less money for districts with declining enrollment. But the bill would ensure that for the next two years, no school district gets funded at levels lower than this year. It also has triggers that could pause the formula’s implementation in the case of further state budget challenges.

McCluskie’s announcement came a day after the Joint Budget Committee released a $43.9 billion budget proposal that includes a $150 million general fund increase for schools — raising total statewide K-12 spending to about $10 billion.

Lawmakers on the powerful budget committee have needed to make numerous cuts because of a $1.2 billion budget shortfall but were adamant about preserving operational funding increases for schools.

Along with McCluskie, state Rep. Meghan Lukens, a Steamboat Springs Democrat; Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican; and state Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, will sponsor the legislation. The bill will be heard first in House chambers, according to McCluskie.

Last year, lawmakers and districts agreed to update a 30-year-old school finance formula that calls for $500 million more a year for schools, with the funding to be phased in over six years.

The state is also required to finance schools adjusting annually for inflation plus the state’s student population count. The state had been using a five-year enrollment average for that figure for years, but lawmakers bumped it down in the new finance formula to four years.

But in November, in light of the budget shortfall, Gov. Jared Polis’ 2025-26 budget proposed to eliminate student averaging altogether. Polis argued enrollment averaging keeps students no longer attending school on the books and causes the state to send extra money to those schools. His proposal would save money that he said would be reinvested into schools.

District leaders quickly criticized the proposal. They have argued the purpose of averaging helps ensure single-year enrollment declines don’t cause big swings in state funding. They also said Polis’ proposal, as well as less funding than expected due to the budget situation, doesn’t fulfill last year’s school finance formula deal.

Despite the disagreement, Polis said in an interview last month he’s open to phasing out averaging over a number of years. He said his eye has been toward maximizing funding and that his administration is “deeply committed to funding students where they’re at,” instead of funding what are known as “ghost students,” or students who are no longer enrolled in a district. With enrollment averaging, districts could still get funding for students who’ve left.

McCluskie’s bill might bridge the gap between the two sides.

In an email attachment, McCluskie laid out how the bill would impact education in the state.

The bill first extends the implementation of the formula from six years to seven to reduce the strain on the budget and the State Education Fund, a sort of state education savings account. State lawmakers have used the savings account to help fund schools in recent years because of its large balance.

The bill would require next year for the state to spend 15% of the $500 million investment needed to change the state formula, or about $75 million. That’s slightly less than the 18% of the $500 million promised last year.

New funding for the formula would increase to 30% of what’s called for to implement the new formula in 2026-27 and 45% in 2027-28.

“We will only move on to the next tier if the funding is sustainable and we are able to invest more in schools,” she said in the email to districts. “If the state’s budget doesn’t allow for more investment in schools in the future, then we’ll pause further implementation and just meet the inflationary increases, as mandated.”

McCluskie then addressed the enrollment count issue by maintaining a four-year average in next year’s budget. The bill would then move to a three-year count in future years unless the State Education Fund’s balance dips below $200 million.

The proposal would allow lawmakers time to figure out how to address declining student enrollment while also continuing to invest in formula changes, according to the document. It says in future years, lawmakers would only change how it calculates student enrollment if the state is moving toward fully funding the new formula.

The state would also “hold harmless” schools to ensure in 2025-26 and 2026-27 their budgets do not lower below this year’s funding levels. And then the bill instructs the budget committee to continue to annually review the formula and develop a sustainability plan for full funding.

This story has been updated to include the bill to reflect that McCluskie filed the legislation on Tuesday.

Colorado’s $43.9 billion budget increases K-12 and higher education funding, but officials say it falls short

2025-04-01T00:21:59+00:00

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The $43.9 billion Colorado budget proposal released Monday includes increases for K-12 and higher education operations in 2025-26, but would be far less than what school leaders say they need.

The budget would bring statewide K-12 spending to about $10 billion, up from $9.8 billion this year. It shows a K-12 general fund increase of $150 million next year, with the state making cuts to certain programs.

Higher education spending would increase by $39 million next year for college and university operations and student financial aid, an increase of 2.5% over last year. Higher education spending, which includes museum programs, would total $1.7 billion.

Lawmakers plan to increase the state’s total budget by $3.3 billion, up from $40.6 billion last year. But the powerful six-member Joint Budget Committee, which helps craft the budget, also had to wrangle a $1.2 billion budget shortfall due to increases in obligations such as Medicaid. That required painful cuts to services in the 2025-26 budget.

Despite these challenges, budget lawmakers repeatedly committed to an increase in funding for K-12 and higher education operations. Lawmakers also will file a school finance bill that spells out how the state will fund schools. A proposal is still in the works.

The initial 2025-26 budget introduced on Monday comes short of what was promised in a school finance formula deal struck last year when lawmakers updated the state’s 30-year-old school finance formula and called for $500 million in new funding phased in over six years.

The House and Senate lawmakers will use the coming days to file amendments and debate and finalize the budget. Both chambers will vote again and send it to Gov. Jared Polis to sign into law.

What does this budget mean for K-12 operations?

The budget fallout for schools began even before the proposal’s introduction.

Adams 12 Five Star Schools Superintendent Chris Gdowski said less than expected funding from the state, the end of pandemic relief money, increasing costs for health insurance, and the increasing costs of utilities and maintenance mean this year’s budget won’t be enough.

Gdowski said at a Friday news conference he expects $27.5 million in district cuts, including 150 layoffs. He said the district employs about 5,100 educators, support staff, and administrators this year.

While the JBC committed $150 million in the budget, lawmakers have yet to decide on the exact structure to distribute funding.

Colorado lawmakers must annually file a Public School Finance Act. The bill requires state per-pupil funding to increase by inflation plus the state’s student population, but lawmakers also committed to a new funding formula last year that would change how the state allocates money to districts.

To make the formula a reality, lawmakers promised $500 million more over the course of six years. Yet lawmakers have said the budget will require changes.

The governor has released a funding proposal, and Colorado Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, has been working on another.

Polis wants to change to the formula so base funding would be calculated on a single year of enrollment instead of funding districts based on a four-year enrollment average. Polis’ proposal would eliminate students who have left the district but are still counted toward the average enrollment. Polis said he would use savings from no longer funding those students to help fund the new formula.

Superintendents and education advocates have argued the four-year average softens the blow of one-year swings in enrollment declines. The change would result in an immediate and difficult decrease in funding for some districts, they’ve argued.

McCluskie has been working on a proposal that would leave enrollment averaging alone next year and scale the school finance formula enactment timeline back to seven years. The proposal would then reduce the average to three years in the second year.

Some lawmakers have called for a halt to the formula.

Gdowksi and other superintendents have chastised lawmakers for going back on last year’s funding commitment to implement the formula fully and increase education funding by state mandated levels, especially because districts are taking on a greater share of state K-12 funding. He said lawmakers should leave per-pupil student averaging alone.

Lawmakers need to figure out a way to raise more money for K-12 schools, he said, especially after 15 years of using mandated education funding for other priorities.

“And over that 15 years, no one out there, in a convincing and credible and courageous way, has been saying we need to invest more in public education to do right by our kids,” he said.

What else is in the budget for K-12?

The budget also features other increases and cuts.

The state would spend an additional $17.8 million next year to supplement funding for students with extra needs. The money goes to help English learners, students with disabilities, and gifted and talented students.
The budget proposes to provide only $8 million in funding for the Healthy School Meals for All program, a universal free school meals program. The money would fund the program for half the 2025-26 school year and decrease the number of eligible schools statewide. JBC members hope voters will approve a measure to increase funding for the program, which would eliminate the need to scale back the program.
The state would spend $6.2 million more on the Charter School Institute mill levy equalization program through the State Education Fund. That would bring state funding to offset local gaps in funding to $54.6 million a year.
The budget increases funding for the Building Excellent Schools Today program to $157.1 million. The program helps school districts pay for construction projects.
The budget proposes a $5 million cut to high-impact tutoring program grants.
Lawmakers also plan cuts to bullying prevention, student career advising, and extra aid to at-risk students, which includes those from lower income backgrounds.

What is included for higher education?

Late last year, higher education leaders projected they needed about $95.3 million in 2025-26 for operations and financial aid.

In a letter to JBC members, they said the increase would help students access higher education and help compensate college workers to keep pace with inflation.

The $39 million in the budget for colleges and universities and student financial aid is far less than requested, but schools would have more authority to increase tuition under the JBC proposal.

Of the money, $31.7 million would be spent on college and university budgets, with about $7.3 million going to financial aid. Total spending for those two budget items would increase to about $193 million a year.

Colorado’s public colleges and universities would also be allowed to raise resident tuition by 3% and non-resident tuition by 3.5% next year.

Colorado’s popular universal school meals program could be cut back. Lawmakers’ solution hinges on voter support.

2025-04-01T00:17:20+00:00

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Colorado’s popular universal free school meals program could face substantial cuts next year if voters don’t approve a measure for additional funding.

The state is facing challenges on two fronts with the Healthy School Meals for All program: less overall revenue for the program than it costs to run and a $1.2 billion budget shortfall that requires cuts to state programs and won’t provide enough money to cover the program’s operations.

Joint Budget Committee lawmakers released a $43.9 billion budget proposal on Monday that includes accompanying legislation to address the program’s funding.

In the best case scenario, voters approve more revenue for the program and the state avoids cuts. In the worst case, state cutbacks would mean only some schools would be eligible to get money for free lunches.

In 2022, Colorado voters allowed the state to raise revenue to make breakfast and lunch free for all students regardless of family income by lowering a tax credit for taxpayers making more than $300,000 a year.

In the first year, funding fell short by $56 million. Lawmakers covered the gap and have continued to do so as the demand for meals soared. Next year, lawmakers will no longer be able to cover costs through the state’s education savings.

The state budget estimates the program will need $151 million next year, but the state will only collect $108.8 million.

The bill would reduce additional state funding to $8 million, enough money to maintain the program through December.

Then the bill spells out two scenarios.

In the first, lawmakers pass House Bill 1274, which is already under consideration and sends two referendums before voters in November to raise more money for the program.

The first referendum would ask voters to approve allowing the state to retain money for the program that typically must be refunded to taxpayers due to the state’s cap on spending.

The second referendum would ask voters to expand the program by increasing taxable income on those who earn over $300,000 a year. A financial analysis of the bill estimates that referendum would generate more than $95 million each year for the school meals program.

The state would collect enough money for the program to maintain services statewide, according to budget projections.

In the second scenario, if the referendum doesn’t pass, only schools that currently participate in the federal Community Eligibility Provision program would qualify for meals free of charge. Schools where at least 25% of the population qualifies for the federal free or reduced lunch pricing threshold would also receive funding.

Students at other schools would have to fill out a federal form to receive free or reduced meals.

Thousands of educators rally at Colorado Capitol to protest school funding proposals

2025-03-20T23:51:26+00:00

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Jennifer Pitts stood on the sidewalk near the Colorado Capitol steps on Thursday holding a sign that read “I’d rather be teaching” as cars drove by and honked in support.

Pitts, a Thornton Elementary fifth grade teacher, said she felt it necessary to rally with thousands of other educators to call on state lawmakers to make good on their promise to fund education at levels promised last year and ensure students across the state get the education they deserve.

Several school districts cancelled classes for the day because of the number of teachers who called off work, including a partial Denver Public Schools closure and full cancellation of classes in Aurora Public Schools, Adams 12 Five Star Schools, and Boulder Valley School District

Teachers Danielle Menapace, left, and Jennifer Pitts, center, stand on the sidewalk in front of the Colorado Capitol during a school funding rally on Thurs., March 20, 2025 in Denver, Colorado. Pitts said she called out of work because students deserve more funding support from the state.

“I don’t want to be here,” said Pitts, whose school is part of Adams 12. “I really would rather be teaching. But it’s so important to be here for the kids. That’s the only reason why any of us go into this job.”

Educators from across the state gathered at the rally organized by the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, to protest lawmakers’ proposals that would back out of a school funding deal made last year.

The state is facing a $1.2 billion budget shortfall. Last year, state lawmakers adopted a new school funding formula that calls for an additional $500 million investment in K-12 schools over the next six years. Lawmakers now want to invest less next year than originally promised.

For too long, teachers at the rally said, the state has balanced the budget on the backs of students and educators. For almost 15 years — before lawmakers did away with what’s known as the budget stabilization factor in this year’s budget — lawmakers pulled constitutionally mandated funding away from schools for other priorities.

The choices lawmakers have made over the years have led to larger class sizes, less student support, and more strain on teachers, teachers said. This year’s proposals would further hurt education, said Jamie Nied, a Leroy Drive Elementary kindergarten teacher.

She said the state has created a situation where teachers must spend thousands each year to support students. She buys students snacks, clothing, books, pencils, and more.

“We’re very underpaid and underfunded,” she said, “so why are we continuing to cut?”

Gov. Jared Polis’ proposal would increase K-12 funding by $138 million next year. But it would also change the way the state doles out per-pupil funding. Instead of funding school districts based on a four-year enrollment average, Polis wants to eliminate averaging altogether.

A one-year count of students would mean the state is not paying for students who are no longer enrolled in school. It would then use that money to pay for investments in the new formula, Polis said.

However, some school officials said the change would mean far less money for districts that have declining enrollment. That could lead districts to cut teachers or close schools, they said.

Democratic Colorado Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie also has drafted a proposal to keep the four-year average next year, but phase out averaging over several years. Her proposal would also slow the phase-in of the new school funding formula from six years to seven years and 18% of the required $500 million to 10% next year.

In an interview Wednesday, Polis said he’s open to phasing out student averaging over time, but added districts would still lose money due to declining enrollment eventually. He said a slow phase-out would only delay the inevitable and cost the state more money.

“I think from the state perspective, the moral ground is that we should fund students who are there versus students who have not been there in several years,” he said.

Colorado teachers rallied to support more funding for schools on Thurs., March 20, 2025 in Denver, Colorado.

Horizon High School German teacher Jason Herrman said it’s unacceptable that lawmakers would go back on a deal made last year.

“It’s just very frustrating when there’s continual cuts and cuts and cuts,” he said.

Colorado Education Association President Kevin Vick said during the rally that teachers are leaving the profession because of the state’s budget decisions.

He called on lawmakers to figure out a long-term funding solution for schools that doesn’t leave the state in a continual cycle of having to cut back on what’s required or what’s promised.

“We have to stop this pattern where every year the budget feels like ‘The Hunger Games,’ pitting one part of our needs against another,” Vick said to cheers from the crowd. “We are not tribute.”

Denver, Boulder, Adams 12 cancel some or all classes Thursday due to teachers union rally

2025-03-19T01:35:33+00:00

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At least three large Colorado school districts have canceled classes at all or some of their schools Thursday because teachers will be attending a daytime rally at the state Capitol to protest cuts to education funding.

The 34,000-student Adams 12 Five Star Schools and the 27,000-student Boulder Valley School District announced last week they would cancel school Thursday because hundreds of teachers would be absent. Colorado’s largest district, 90,000-student Denver Public Schools, announced Tuesday that more than half of its schools will be closed, as well.

A letter to families from Denver Superintendent Alex Marrero lists schools that will remain open, including 29 district-run schools, 55 charter schools, and the school inside the Gilliam Youth Services Center, a youth detention center.

Several other large districts, including Jeffco Public Schools, Douglas County, and Cherry Creek, are on spring break this week.

The rally, organized by the Colorado Education Association, will call on state lawmakers to preserve education funding amidst a $1.2 billion state budget deficit next year. Lawmakers plan to increase education funding within the 2025-26 budget, but the amount will likely fall short of what they promised after last year’s revamp of a 30-year-old school funding formula that calls for a $500 million investment phased in over six years.

CEA President Kevin Vick said the rally is meant to remind lawmakers that they have underfunded K-12 schools for almost 15 years, amounting to over $10 billion in constitutionally mandated funding being pulled away from schools. While Vick said he understands the tough budget situation, schools have needed to operate with far less funding than they should have.

“We feel like we’ve done our time,” Vick said in an interview. “We simply are at our limit and we can’t absorb any more losses. Districts are operating at such a thin margin that if there is significant losses in revenue at this point, it’s going to mean a lot of teachers lost. It’s going to mean a lot of schools closing.”

Educators will also call on lawmakers to figure out how to boost school funding in the future. Lawmakers commissioned two studies that say if schools are to adequately teach students they should increase K-12 funding by $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion annually.

Lawmakers would need to place a ballot measure before voters to increase funding by those levels, Vick said. That would take a large campaign to educate voters about the need for more school funding, he said.

“We’re trying to find a way where we can change the conversation about taxes so that we can have an honest conversation about what we want in terms of quality of life here in Colorado,” Vick said.

The state legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, which makes the bulk of the decisions in crafting a state spending proposal, is in the process this week of finalizing proposed budget cuts for consideration before the full General Assembly.

Colorado is facing a budget shortfall. Advocates say that shouldn’t stop progress to boost school funding.

2025-03-14T00:31:30+00:00

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An estimated $1.2 billion state budget shortfall has put an insurmountable kink in Colorado lawmakers’ plan to increase education funding to “adequate” levels after a decade and a half of shortchanging the state’s public schools.

Last year, state lawmakers voted to fully fund Colorado schools by no longer withholding funding from schools and diverting it to other departments. In January, two studies commissioned by lawmakers concluded that full funding — $9.8 billion this year — isn’t enough. The studies said Colorado needs to spend $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion more per year to adequately fund its public schools.

But two months later, it’s clear that doing so will be impossible in the short term and could mean asking voters for more money in the long term. A coalition of education advocacy groups say lawmakers’ current struggles and the history of K-12 spending in the state illustrate why Colorado needs to discuss a long-term solution to increase revenue for school funding.

Colorado’s budget forecast is so grim that state lawmakers who have long championed public education at the Capitol are wondering if their colleagues would approve spending a meager $30,000 on an interim committee that would meet between this legislative session and the next and make recommendations for how to proceed.

State Sen. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, said she is floating the idea of funding the interim committee through donations.

“We will make sure that we’re able to find that money somehow,” Kipp said. “And if that fails, we will go to Plan B. And if we have to, we will go to Plan C and Plan D.”

Bret Miles, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, said discussions about increasing school funding have been ongoing for years, but the two studies provide the first lawmaker-approved look at what schools need to educate students.

The state shouldn’t lose that momentum even as it tackles a tough budget, he said.

“They need to decide the right solution,” Miles said of lawmakers. “Our expectation is that there’s forward movement.”

Lisa Weil, executive director of the group Great Education Colorado, which is part of the coalition, agreed.

“It’s really hard to do that when you’re staring down the barrel of a $1.2 billion deficit,” she said. “What we’re hoping is that there would be some openness.”

Next year’s budget makes it hard to focus on the future

Lawmakers have said it’s difficult to think about the long-term funding future of K-12 when they’re still figuring out cuts to the 2025-26 budget.

The state’s $40.6 billion budget is expected to increase next year, with Gov. Jared Polis proposing a $46 billion budget.

But the state has to pay for the growing cost of programs such as Medicaid. The state also will need to send back state revenue to taxpayers because of Taxpayer Bill of Rights caps on how much money the state can keep and spend.

Joint Budget Committee members, who have a large say in setting the budget, want to increase spending for key school operations and meet what’s mandated for schools under the state’s constitution. That means the state will steer clear of enacting another budget stabilization factor, or the withholding of mandated K-12 spending for other budget priorities.

But they’re eyeing cuts to certain programs and grants, like the Building Excellent Schools Today program, which helps fund school construction projects.

And the total amount of funding that school districts get from the state also might be lower than what lawmakers promised last year when they approved a major change to the state’s school funding formula, which hadn’t been updated since 1993.

The new formula is meant to send districts more money for at-risk students, such as students from low-income backgrounds, and increase funding for small and rural districts. State lawmakers approved spending $500 million to support the changes. Their plan called for phasing the money in over six years.

Polis has said he’s committed to implementing the formula. But at the same time, he has proposed a cost-cutting measure that would retool how the state calculates student enrollment for the purpose of per-pupil funding. Instead of funding districts based on a four-year enrollment average, Polis wants to fund districts based on a single year of enrollment, which would mean less money for districts that have declining enrollment.

Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie said she is working on an alternate plan that would leave the four-year enrollment average in place but scale back how much the state pays this year into the new school funding formula, reducing it from 18% of the $500 million currently required to 10%. Her plan would also phase the formula in over seven years instead of six, effectively slowing the funding increases.

How lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee will proceed with these plans or their own depends greatly on next week’s March economic forecast. The school funding formula has triggers that would halt its implementation, such as in the case of an economic downturn.

McCluskie said her hope is to address the budget this year and then dig deeper into how to better fund schools after this legislative session, which ends in May. She said she’s committed to keeping the studies at the forefront.

“Those adequacy studies have to be a part of our next steps after this budget year,” McCluskie said. “We have got to think about more sustainable funding.”

Some lawmakers say they can make progress this year

Other lawmakers say they are open to pressing forward as soon as possible.

The two adequacy studies that suggest the state spend an additional $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion per year on public schools provide different perspectives on how to do that.

The first study says the state should spend more money on all students while giving districts a smaller additional amount to increase services for students with the highest needs. The other study recommends spending less on district operations while sending considerably more money for schools that serve students with the highest needs.

Lawmakers would need to choose between the two models then figure out how to increase the tax base to boost funding for schools.

Sen. Kipp said the interim committee she hopes to propose would likely recommend adopting one of the two adequacy studies. The eventual goal would be to place a ballot measure in front of voters that addresses new revenue for schools, she said.

It will be a tall order. Previous ballot measures have failed to gain the necessary votes.

State Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat who heads the Senate Education Committee, said if an interim committee doesn’t get created, he wants to propose using joint hearings of the House and Senate education committees to discuss the adequacy studies. He also said he plans to talk with his constituents about the idea of a ballot measure to increase school funding.

State Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat, and House Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat, said that even without an interim committee, lawmakers could hold informal sessions that keep the conversation going about how to move the adequacy studies forward.

Marchman said she’d like to see a ballot measure put before voters as soon as 2026.

“We can still get progress done,” Marchman said. “And so my hope would be that we will work over the interim in a really broad and transparent stakeholding process and come forth with one or more bills for the 2026 session.”

Weil of Great Education Colorado said the state can’t afford to wait, because a generation of students have gone to underfunded Colorado schools. The studies show how to pay teachers more, create smaller class sizes, and make sure students are getting the help they need to learn, she said.

“I believe that everybody in that building wants better for our students,” Weil said, “and we just have to decide, are we going to try?”

Colorado teachers need help teaching English learners to read. The state wants more training.

2025-03-12T02:59:14+00:00

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While Colorado is seeing some improvement in reading instruction, some students continue to struggle.

As a result, the Colorado Department of Education is seeking $3.3 million in the 2025-26 education budget to create new training for teachers to teach English learners to read. It would be used to help teachers differentiate instruction for those students.

State officials say it’s a common request they’ve heard from the field.

English learners advocates have raised concerns for years about how literacy instruction policies affect students who are simultaneously learning English as a new language. Recently, academic achievement data has raised more concerns about how English learner students are performing. And, a recent national study published last month found that many teachers are unhappy with guidance on how to teach reading to English learners.

“Teachers want to more deeply understand how to support this group of students and we want to provide them with that training,” said Joanna Bruno, CDE chief academic officer.

It’s not about teaching something different from what science of reading research tells teachers is effective, Bruno said. The science of reading is a large body of research on how children learn to read that emphasizes teaching phonics, or the relationships between letters and sounds.

Rather, Bruno said it’s about providing additional support so that students get more practice with the language to develop their vocabulary, learn the meaning of the words they are decoding, and also get more opportunities to write, and hear the pronunciation of words and sentences.

“It needs to be an active classroom,” Bruno said.

In the current school year, about 12% of Colorado’s public school students, or more than 105,000 students, are identified as either having limited or no English proficiency, an increase from previous years.

Report says teachers face challenges in the classroom

Similar teacher needs are represented in the new nationwide survey of 77 teachers published last month by the National Committee for Effective Literacy. Co-authors Kathy Escamilla and Kim Strong, both researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, said they wanted to get an idea by asking teachers how science of reading polices and statutes were being implemented in classrooms with English learners.

Researchers found that, in many places, phonics literacy requirements are encroaching or replacing the required time for English language development, and that materials are not culturally inclusive or relevant.

But, Claude Goldenberg, another English learner researcher who wasn’t involved in the study, said that the published report was concerning, unclear, and that it appeared biased, in part because teachers were recruited for interviews at the conferences hosted by the same English learner advocacy groups that criticize new phonics-based reading instruction policies.

Goldenberg said he agrees that reading policies are inadequate in addressing the needs of English learners, but that the report doesn’t allow for a clear takeaway on the problem at the root of teacher experiences.

“The issues they identify, is that the fault of the science of reading, or the science, the knowledge, what we know? Or is it the fault of superficial and inadequate understanding of that knowledge base and how it’s being implemented?” Goldenberg said. “We don’t know what to do with it.”

Escamilla said the report isn’t meant to be critical of the science.

Instead she believes there is likely a gap between theory and practice. She said advocates in Colorado have asked lawmakers to reconsider reworking the state’s statute directing reading instruction.

She said if lawmakers can agree, “this isn’t what we had in mind, the kids aren’t getting what they need, they’re spending too much time doing this and not enough time doing that,” then, “help us craft a statewide policy that is more friendly and more equitable to what kids need.”

The state has responded to feedback

Bruno said the department hears similar feedback from Colorado teachers. She said the department is trying to help districts understand that literacy instruction should not replace English language development time for students learning English as a new language or other academic courses.

In Colorado, English learner researchers, including some involved in the recent survey report, called on state officials to make changes in 2020, worrying that as the state drilled down on science of reading that it would mean a phonics-only focus that would harm English learners.

Since then, the department responded by creating specific guidance for school districts about how to implement literacy instruction for students learning English as a new language, created a rubric to evaluate Spanish-language literacy materials, and hired a liaison to help the department’s different offices work together to think more about multilingual learners.

The department also created a series of professional development courses to help teachers understand more about biliteracy, and started a new State of the State report that looks at how English learners are performing, as a way to more closely monitor and find best practices.

“It’s baby steps,” Escamilla said. “We fought hard in Colorado, but well, the outcomes speak for themselves. We have some real things we need to work on with regard to how we’re looking at outcomes for kids who are learning English as an additional language.”

Education department budget request documents cite the most recent external evaluation of the program from October 2024, which found bright spots in how the READ Act is working, including that the number of students newly identified as having a significant reading deficiency has decreased to 4.7% of students. The READ Act is a Colorado law, first passed in 2012 updated since, that makes certain requirements of school districts related to reading instruction.

However, English learners continue to be over-represented among students with a significant reading deficiency, according to the budget request. And, students who have a significant reading deficiency identified between kindergarten and third grade, have “extraordinarily low” rates of proficiency on literacy tests.

Those numbers suggest, “a need to emphasize increased training on strategies to support ELLs alongside their English speaking peers,” the budget request stated.

At a hearing last week to discuss the budget request, State Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, a Republican representing Weld and Larimer counties, questioned when to decide that funding reading programs isn’t working.

Amanda Bickel, the budget analyst speaking to the joint budget committee, responded that staff would like to see if more training might have an impact on outcomes before they decide that millions spent on reading initiatives aren’t working.

“You have put in a lot of effort so far,” said Bickel, chief legislative analyst.

The legislative staff recommended that the line item be approved if money remained after using COVID relief funds this year.

The committee approved the recommendation for the $3.3 million request, contingent on money remaining, by a 3 to 2 vote.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Bill to beef up Colorado funding for universal school meals passes first vote

2025-03-07T03:25:11+00:00

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A bill that would ask voters to approve new funding for universal school meals passed its first vote from Colorado lawmakers Thursday, following testimony from people like Martha Espinoza.

Espinoza, a mom and home early child care provider in Greeley, told lawmakers at the capitol before the vote that free school meals for all students has been important for families she knows.

There are parents who have to wake up before dawn and spend an hour getting to work by 4 a.m. and then work 12-hour shifts every day. For them, preparing meals that stay fresh during the day for their children is complicated, she said.

“This proposal would help parents have the security that their children are fed in a healthy way while they’re learning,” Espinoza said.

She was one of about 30 people who supported the bill in public testimony. Many said that the Healthy School Meals for All program providing universal meals removes the stigma for students, because accepting the meals does not mean they come from low-income families. Educators said that students miss less school and learn better when they’re not hungry. Many who testified spoke to lawmakers in Spanish. Some held back tears as they talked. Two speakers did testify against the bill, citing costs and food waste.

In 2022, Colorado voters approved a ballot proposal to make breakfast and lunch free for all students regardless of family income. The program was funded by lowering a tax credit for taxpayers making more than $300,000 a year, meaning they pay more in taxes.

But many more students than the state projected are eating the subsidized school meals. That means the cost has also gone up and has led legislators to look for more funding.

HB 1274 — sponsored by two Democrats, Rep. Lorena García and Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet — would put two questions to voters this November.

The first would ask voters if the state can keep all of the revenue it collected for the program in its first full year being in effect. That’s because the state ended up collecting more than expected. Under Colorado’s TABOR law, the state must ask permission to keep the extra money, about $12.4 million, or issue refunds to taxpayers.

The second ballot question proposed in the bill would ask voters to approve new revenue to pay for the school meals by further lowering a tax credit for those same taxpayers making more than $300,000. The bill would aim to collect about $95 million in additional revenue to go towards the Healthy School Meals for All program.

Last year, the program had a $56 million shortfall that lawmakers filled from other funding sources.

Lawmakers on the House education committee advanced the bill forward in a 7-5 vote.

Even if the bill makes it all the way through the legislature and the questions make it to voters in November, and the voters approve the questions, the state wouldn’t collect the new funding until 2026. That means the state still needs to find the funds to support the program in the current year.

A report published by the Joint Budget Committee staff this week estimates that the current school year’s cost for Healthy School Meals For All is about $138 million. The state had calculated that about $115 million would come from the program’s funding of taxes on those who make more than $300,000, but new estimates show that the program may only generate about $103 million for this school year.

That would mean the state needs $35.2 million from its education fund to cover the shortfall. Some funding from that account, about $22 million, was already set to help cover the meals program, but this week’s projections show more will be needed.

One speaker, Dan Sharp, a school nutrition director in Mesa County, said in his district participation in school meals has gone up by 40% since the start of the program. The district now serves 12,000 school meals daily, he said.

Prior to the state program making meals free for all students, he said there were students who were eligible for free meals but didn’t participate because of the stigma, and would go hungry.

“We can do a lot more,” he said. Fully funding the program will be a good thing for districts, he added.

Children ‘connected to where their food comes from’

Many of those who testified also spoke in support of Colorado farmers and ranchers.

The original program as voters approved it in 2022 included grant programs that would help school districts purchase local food for the meals, and other grants to help train staff or provide stipends for food service staff.

Those grant programs were supposed to be phased in after the first year, but have been on hold because of the lack of enough funding in the program.

Key Colorado lawmakers want to keep free school meals for all students despite budget shortfall

If voters approved the two ballot questions included in the bill, there may be enough funding to roll out those grant programs.

Luke Larson, owner of a ranch and cattle operation in Fowler in southwest Colorado, sells beef under the Centennial Cuts brand name.

He said he’s benefited from a pilot program that existed before the 2022 initiative and which helped school districts purchase food from local ranchers and farmers. That pilot was due to expand under the grants that have been established by Healthy School Meals for All grants but haven’t been funded yet.

“Our family’s beef is currently being served three miles from our ranch in the Fowler schools, and 20 miles from us in the Crowley schools,” Larson said. “Children in these districts are not only receiving great tasting nutritious food but they’re importantly being connected to where their food comes from, and how it’s produced. This connection to how healthy food is produced will last a lifetime.”

Not everyone has the same priorities. One of the lawmakers who opposed the bill, GOP Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, cited state budget problems this year. She also worried about food waste.

“Not all families need free meals,” Garcia Sander said. “I don’t believe the majority of Colorado’s taxpayers will have the appetite for this this year.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

The $1 billion in bond projects for Aurora schools will kick off soon, managed with outside help

2025-03-06T17:41:16+00:00

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The Aurora school district is working to get projects funded through a $1 billion bond program started by this summer. One of its first steps: Hiring an outside contractor to oversee all the work.

In December, the district signed a contract with Jacobs Project Management for $17 million over the next five years, coming out of the bond. Voters approved the bond — the largest school bond in state history — in 2024.

One of the first things the Jacobs staff is working on with Aurora is the schedule of work for all the bond projects. It is nearly complete, and community members can expect to see work starting soon, said Brett Johnson, the district’s chief financial officer.

Johnson said the district made the decision to outsource the management of the work because of how many large projects will be involved.

Asking the Aurora staff already tasked with managing an assortment of projects to take on an additional billion dollars worth of projects would be a lot, Johnson said.

“Our interest and decision to engage with an owners rep for this is representative of the fact that we also just approved the largest bond package in the history of Colorado schools,” Johnson said.

Among the things the $1 billion bond program will cover is a new high school, a significant rebuild of Gateway High School, rebuilding Laredo Elementary, and construction of two new pre-K-8 buildings.

“What we’re really leaning on them for is to make sure we’re on time and on budget, and having a centralized set of eyes to monitor projects in real time,” Johnson said of the management company.

The contract for Jacobs wasn’t approved individually by the board because it was included as part of the package of bond work the board already approved. Similarly, already approved bond projects won’t need board approval for each contract. But part of Jacobs’ work will also be to review the district’s process for requesting bids and awarding contracts and to recommend any needed changes.

The Aurora school district has closed eight schools in the last five years due to declining enrollment, but always said the district faced the issue of declining student populations in the west, near Denver, while new development meant growing student counts in the east.

The district has already opened a new school in the last few years for new developments toward the northeast part of the district, but the need is expected to keep growing.

Although some of the metro area school districts continue to lose students, the Aurora school district started turning that trend around with enrollment growing for several years. This year, 39,813 students are enrolled in Aurora schools, up from a low of 37,907 in the fall of 2020.

Companies often help school districts with bond projects

Hiring a company to help manage bond projects isn’t unique.

For example, this year, the neighboring Adams 12 school district is also contracting with a firm, Anser Advisory, now under Accenture, for $2.5 million to help manage two of the district’s bond projects: the rebuilding of Thornton High School and the expansion of FutureForward at Bollman, the district’s career and technical education campus. Together, the two projects represent about $260 million, or 31%, of the total $830 million bond.

School districts that apply for state support for building repairs or projects through the BEST grant program are also “strongly encouraged” to hire a project management firm for new schools or major renovations, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Education said. It’s fairly common among smaller or rural districts that might not have a lot of staff members available to work on large new projects requiring a lot of attention.

In Aurora, the plan is for the management company to work collaboratively with the district’s internal team that is dedicated to construction projects, Johnson said.

And as in other years, the district will still have oversight from the community through a Citizens Bond Oversight Committee that already started meeting this year.

But having a team of people dedicated just to work on these projects means everything should be monitored more closely, Johnson said.

The school district’s director of construction, Caleb Tobin, submitted his resignation last month and will leave the district soon.

Emails obtained by Chalkbeat show the director has been asking the district to approve new staff to help with the bond since at least October.

In an email written in December and then followed up again in January, Tobin urged the district for more staff, saying there is more work to be done now. He cited non-bond projects, such as those affiliated with the Mill Levy and new facilities being added to the school district

“We have significant needs that, in my opinion, should not be filled by hiring additional expensive contract staff,” he wrote. “We can and should be building our team up for a future APS that has significantly more facilities and projects, and we should do so in a way that is financially and operationally prudent, which in my opinion means hiring long-term APS staff.”

Even if the new positions had to be hired slowly over time, Tobin wrote, it would be positive for the current staff and the whole district.

At least one project manager was approved to start mid-year. District leaders told Tobin to make any other position needs a part of the department’s budget request for the next school year.

The district set up a website with a map detailing all the bond projects and their status.

Read a copy of the contract.

This story has been updated with a link to the map of Aurora Public Schools bond projects.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado voters may get another say in funding free school meals for all

2025-02-25T17:39:19+00:00

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Less than three years after Colorado voters approved a ballot measure to provide all students with free school meals, state lawmakers are considering asking voters for more money to keep the popular program afloat.

A bill introduced this week in the state legislature proposes putting two measures on the ballot in November that would allow the state to collect and keep more tax revenue to cover a funding shortfall for the meals program.

Colorado voters in 2022 supported a move to make breakfast and lunch free for all students regardless of family income. The program was funded by lowering a tax credit for taxpayers making more than $300,000 a year, which has meant they pay more in taxes.

But that funding hasn’t been enough. More children have been eating school meals than budget analysts expected — and more students than expected don’t qualify for federal subsidies.

In the first year the program kicked in, it fell short by $56 million. Lawmakers covered the gap. This year, the program is expected to fall short again — by $27 million, according to figures from a year ago.

Key Colorado lawmakers want to keep free school meals for all students despite budget shortfall

The solution proposed in House Bill 1274, introduced this week, would ask voters in November’s election two questions.

First, voters would be asked to approve letting the state keep the more than $26 million that the program has collected over what it expected — instead of having to issue that money back in refunds to those taxpayers who make more than $300,000.

Because of Colorado’s TABOR amendment, the state is not allowed to keep revenue that exceeds what they tell voters will be collected without explicitly asking for permission. Without that permission, the state has to return money it already collected.

Second, voters would be asked to lower the deductions that taxpayers earning more than $300,000 or more can get to $1,000, so that the state can collect more money. The bill estimates this would generate an additional $95 million each year for the school meals program.

In December, a group tasked with coming up with possible solutions to the funding shortfall presented 27 options. But about a third of those options would limit which students get the free meals, something key lawmakers have said they don’t want to do.

Two lawmakers sponsored the bill: Rep. Lorena García and Sen. Dafna Michaelson Jenet, both Democrats from districts covering parts of Adams county. A spokesperson for Hunger Free Colorado, a nonprofit that advocated for the original program, said leaders with the group have been involved in helping draft the bill.

According to the bill text, the free school meals are “reducing stigma, improving student physical and mental health and well-being, boosting academic success, and saving families money.”

The way the state’s free school meals program was set up, school districts had to choose, or opt-in, to participate and receive state funds. All but one school district has been participating. Statewide, student participation in school meals went up about 30% after all students could get free meals.

When the program was initially proposed, advocates said that many Colorado families who didn’t qualify for free- or reduced-price meals based on the federal guidelines were still struggling financially because of the state’s high cost of living.

And although school meals are now free for any student, schools still ask families to fill out federal eligibility forms. The forms help track the levels of poverty among students, but the state also uses them to receive federal reimbursements for students who qualify for one, before then covering the rest of the cost of the meals.

School districts report that although it takes effort from school leaders to remind parents to fill out the forms, the number of parents filling out forms has not dropped. Statewide this year, 44.9% of students qualified for subsidized meals, down from 45.8% last year.

In the current school year, a family of four would need to make less than $40,560 a year for the children to qualify for free meals, by federal standards.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that all but one school district in Colorado are participating in the Healthy Meals for All program. A previous version said all school districts were participating.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Why Colorado Mesa University’s president decided to stand alone when it comes to higher ed funding

2025-01-28T22:59:06+00:00

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After four years on the job, Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall felt he needed to break ranks.

Colorado higher education leaders have made it a tradition to sign a letter stating how much more money they need beyond the governor’s November request, including this year. The unified financial requests have led to far more money for all colleges and universities in recent years.

But Marshall said he couldn’t sign onto this year’s letter for the sake of the students he serves. He hopes his absent signature sparks a conversation about the challenges the Grand Junction school has faced — not a disagreement that Colorado universities need more state funding.

Colorado Mesa gets the lowest state funding of all universities statewide despite enrollment growing over the years, he said. That’s at a time when more students are sticking with college at Marshall’s school, requiring his staff to do far more with less than Colorado peers.

“Signing on to this letter every year, going along, getting along, and just not rocking the boat — How’s that going?” Marshall said. “The answer is not well.”

This year, other Colorado university leaders have requested $80.2 million more for their operations, plus another $15.1 million for student financial aid. They’re also asking for the authority to raise tuition 2.7% for resident undergraduates.

Comparatively, the Polis administration proposed in November a $12.1 million increase for university operating budgets and financial aid. The request slightly raises the $1.6 billion the state spends on students and colleges.

In their December letter to the Joint Budget Committee, which has the most say on the budget, school leaders said additional funding would help maintain student access to higher education and help compensate workers to keep pace with inflation.

Yet Marshall said that money still leaves Colorado Mesa well behind others.

In the 2024-25 budget year, Colorado Mesa received $2,264 less per student than the state average, according to a CMU presentation.

The school has grown enrollment by 68% in almost 25 years, but lower funding has been compounded over many years, Marshall said.

Historically, smaller regional public colleges in Colorado have been funded at lower levels than other schools.

Despite the school serving a large number of students who are the first to go to college in their family, the state’s finance formula doesn’t set enough money to offset that historically lower funding from the state. The school also doesn’t get additional money for being designated by the state a First Generation-Serving Campus.

And tuition and fees are lower than many other schools, which amounts to the lowest funding of any university, the presentation said.

Marshall presented to JBC members that $14.7 million more annually would bring the school to near the average in state spending.

The funding would be critical for Colorado Mesa because it would go toward helping more students get to and through college, especially those with no college background, Marshall said.

Last year, Gov. Jared Polis challenged schools to find efficiency in their operations. Marshall said he’s done that out of necessity, educating more students with fewer staff. That has consequences for students when there aren’t enough staff members to help them during college.

Marshall added “these decisions we’re making have these very direct consequences on a student’s education.”

“I would argue, ethically, we have got to do a better job.”

Marshall also said he couldn’t ethically stay silent.

It’s unclear whether Marshall will be able to get much more funding this year for his school. The JBC is wrangling a $1 billion deficit and must make cuts. It’s also unclear how much funding higher education as a whole will get.

He said he knows Colorado leaders have inherited the complex funding system that over time has tried to incorporate social, cultural, economic, and political considerations. He’s not assigning fault to anyone, but wants lawmakers to understand that the funding reality has left CMU students behind.

Colorado school districts push back on plan that state officials say would save $147 million

2025-01-24T04:42:46+00:00

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Colorado would save $147 million next year by using a single-year student count for the purposes of calculating how to fund schools, according to the state’s budget director.

Colorado funds its school districts per student, and Gov. Jared Polis has proposed using a single-year student count rather than a multi-year average to help balance a $1 billion shortfall. Because Colorado’s enrollment is declining, using a single-year count would cost less.

But school district officials pushed back during a legislative hearing Thursday, saying the maneuver would amount to Colorado once again balancing its budget on the backs of students.

They said cutting education dollars would be especially disappointing given that state lawmakers just got rid of another measure that allowed the state to redirect mandated school funding to other priorities. That measure was known as the budget stabilization factor or the negative factor. This new proposed measure would be no better, they said.

“I understand why the governor and the leadership doesn’t want to refer to this as the negative factor,” said Cherry Creek School District Chief Financial and Operating Officer Scott Smith. “I’m happy to keep referring to it as the Polis stabilization factor if that sounds better.”

Colorado currently uses a five-year enrollment average to determine how much per-pupil funding to send to school districts. A newly revamped school funding formula passed by state lawmakers last year changes that to a four-year enrollment average for some districts starting next year.

Lawmakers and school officials hit on the enrollment averaging issue numerous times during the daylong hearing of the House and Senate education committees Thursday.

A separate committee, the six-member Joint Budget Committee, will have the most say on how lawmakers will address the billion-dollar budget hole in the 2025-26 fiscal year.

Colorado Budget Director Mark Ferrandino, who helped craft Polis’ proposal, told the education committee that funding districts based on a single year’s enrollment rather than a four-year average would protect school funding into the future. He said the governor’s proposal would keep the State Education Fund, a kind of savings account for education expenses, solvent.

“We’re trying to find a middle ground,” Ferrandino said.

But school finance officers from Aurora, Denver, Jefferson County, and Steamboat Springs said the change would renege on a policy promise made last year. Lawmakers agreed on the four-year average within the 2024 rewrite of the state’s 30-year-old finance formula.

The formula calls for the state to invest $500 million more into K-12 education over six years, starting with a proposed $150 million next year. The governor’s budget proposal would increase total K-12 spending to about $9.9 billion.

Denver Public Schools Chief of Finance Chuck Carpenter said school districts feel they must choose between having a new formula or keeping enrollment averaging. He said lawmakers did excellent work last year to create a new formula and boost education funding, and averaging was a part of the negotiations.

“I think to not stick with it would be a real mistake,” Carpenter said.

About 80% of the state’s 178 school districts would be negatively impacted by eliminating averaging, the finance officers said. The $150 million Polis is proposing for the school finance formula wouldn’t offset those cuts, they said, and rural schools would likely be hit the hardest.

Some lawmakers agreed with them. Others pushed back.

Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican who has wanted to eliminate averaging for years, said the change would ensure the state no longer pays for “phantom students.”

This year, the state is sending money to school districts for about 17,750 students who are no longer enrolled, according to legislative staff data. Next year, the state is expected to fund 11,860 such students.

Lundeen asked legislative staff members to calculate what it would look like for the state to phase out the averaging over a number of years instead of all at once.

“I have a fundamental discomfort that the $147 million does not go to students who are in the system today,” Lundeen said. “It goes to the shadow, the memory, the image of a student who once might have been in a school district.”

But Smith, the finance officer in Cherry Creek, disagreed. He said schools use that money to help the students who are currently enrolled and that without it, district leaders have to make difficult decisions. Districts might have to enact wage freezes or reduce the number of classroom teachers, counselors, success coaches, and other student support staff, he said.

“We were the one balancing the state’s budget,” Smith said. “Someone else’s turn is up.”

Colorado’s student enrollment declines again, but more metro area districts saw growth

2025-01-15T16:00:32+00:00

Enrollment in Colorado public schools declined more slowly than in past years, while several districts in the Denver metro area saw gains.

The October 2024 enrollment count, which the state uses to determine how much money each school district receives, showed Colorado public schools with 881,065 students, down 0.1% from 881,464 a year earlier, according to data released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Education.

In a sign of longer-term trends, early grades have far smaller numbers of students than the high school grades, the data showed. For example, Colorado has 74,727 students in 12th grade preparing to graduate this spring, and 69,455 students in the class behind them. Meanwhile, this year’s kindergarten class has just 58,604 students.

Preschools run by school districts have 31,861 students this year, down almost 200 students from last year.

The state demographer expects the statewide decline to continue through about 2028, due partly to declines in both birth rates and migration to the state.

Some metro area districts that had been experiencing declining enrollment recorded an increase. Of 15 districts in the Denver metro area, seven had an increase in enrollment, compared with just three that did last year. The new gainers were Cherry Creek, Mapleton, Westminster, and Englewood.

Even so, only one metro area district — the 27J school district based in Brighton — now has more students than it did in 2019, before the start of the pandemic.

Statewide, of 186 districts and BOCES, just 63 had an increase in enrollment from the previous year, while 119 had a decrease, and four had flat enrollment. In 2023-24, 67 districts had an increase over their previous year’s enrollment.

Under the state’s education funding system, fewer students means fewer dollars, but to give districts more predictability and avoid big changes from year to year, Colorado uses averages of districts’ four most recent years of enrollment.

Gov. Jared Polis is proposing to end that averaging and use the single year’s October count instead to calculate funding levels, a change that many district leaders oppose.

Last year, some districts complained that the October numbers deciding their funding didn’t reflect the many new migrant students with higher needs who enrolled in their districts later in the year. Colorado lawmakers made a one-time adjustment to give some districts additional funding for those new students.

This year, districts aren’t seeing the same midyear influx of migrant students.

Chuck Carpenter, chief financial officer for Denver Public Schools, told the school board at a recent meeting that last year’s influx after October was unusual but that keeping those new migrant students this school year allowed DPS to surpass its enrollment projections.

“We are not seeing continued inflows of students,” Carpenter said. “And we think we are in a normal trend with enrollment right now and going into next year.”

Official October enrollment numbers from the state don’t track how many of the students are new to the country.

But overall, the state saw a rise in the number of students who are labeled as English learners, or “multilingual learners” as the state now calls them. These are students who are learning English as a new language, and not all are migrants.

The enrollment data shows the state’s student population becoming more racially diverse, with the number of students identified as Hispanic growing the most.

Other groups of students that saw an increase in counts this year include students who are identified as homeless. This year, there are 14,498 students identified as homeless, 366 more than last year. These students are spread across the state. Last year, four districts each had more than 1,000 students identified as homeless, which was new, whereas this year, it’s back to only one: Adams 12.

Also, more students enrolled in online or homeschooling programs compared with last year.

Statewide, the number of students eligible for free or reduced-price meals under federal guidelines decreased by more than 2%, or 8,000 students, to 394,765.

In some districts, officials saw large declines in at-risk student populations this year, largely based on that free and reduced-price measure, as a result of changes to Medicaid. Qualifying for Medicaid allows students to be automatically counted as at-risk, but many students have now lost that eligibility.

In Colorado, currently all students receive a free school meal regardless of family income, but families are still encouraged to fill out forms to determine their eligibility under federal guidelines, because it helps the state get more federal money to pay for those free meals, and because it’s used as a measure of poverty.

District leaders have said they’ve seen families continue to fill out the forms, though some school leaders have had to do more than before to prompt families.

Look up enrollment changes at your district in the table below:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Jared Polis repeats call to change how Colorado calculates student enrollment

2025-01-10T00:22:32+00:00

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Gov. Jared Polis doubled down on his call to change how the state calculates school districts’ state funding during his State of the State speech on Thursday.

In his speech, Polis repeated his proposal to use student enrollment from just a single year, instead of Colorado’s current method of using a four-year average, to fund schools.

“Colorado is an outlier when it comes to school funding — with our current system funding based on students who were enrolled four years ago,” Polis said. “It is past time to eliminate this antiquated system that funds empty chairs rather than actual students.”

The issue can quickly become technical but carries major significance for districts’ bottom lines. The change, which Polis first introduced in his November budget proposal, has been criticized by some district leaders with declining student populations. They said such a change would greatly reduce their state revenue.

The issue has also split lawmakers on how to proceed forward, especially because many are worried about cutting into recent K-12 investments.

As Polis said, most states don’t average enrollment for the purpose of their budgets. But several have moved to Colorado’s model since the pandemic and in light of declining enrollment.

Eliminating the method of using a four-year average would save Colorado money in a tight budget year. Yet some school leaders and advocates have said that could also trigger large, single-year budget dips. District leaders also like averaging enrollment counts because it helps them prepare for budget declines over a greater length of time.

One recent study on Colorado school funding said the state should consider using either a single-year enrollment count or a three-year average, whichever is greater for each district.

In a news conference after his speech, Polis said he’s open to a discussion about different options, but reiterated he wants to make sure the state is funding students where they are — not where they were several years ago.

Lawmakers have said they want to figure out the best route forward to balance the state budget while also reducing the impact to districts.

Colorado House Speaker Julie McCluskie, a Democrat, said in a recent interview that she’s studying how schools would be impacted by Polis’ proposal.

“I really appreciate some of the numbers that I’ve seen initially from districts with the elimination of the averaging provision,” she said. “I want to explore and better understand those impacts.”

Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Republican, said after the governor’s speech that he’s advocated for a single-year count for 13 years.

“I don’t think we should pay for empty seats,” Lundeen said, although he also said he’s willing to work toward a compromise.

Meanwhile, House Education Committee Vice Chair and Majority Co-Whip Matthew Martinez, a Democrat, said he’s most concerned about how changes would impact rural districts, especially those in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. He said the new school finance formula invests money into rural schools that he serves, and he doesn’t want to see schools negatively affected.

Members of the Joint Budget Committee, which crafts the budget, are still figuring out how to address the issue.

During Monday’s Chalkbeat Colorado legislative event, state Sen. Jeff Bridges, the Joint Budget Committee’s chair, said lawmakers are floating many ideas about how to lessen the impact of changing to a single-year enrollment count.

“For me, at the end of the day, it’s about what’s the impact on kids,” he said.

Protecting school funding will be a priority for these Colorado lawmakers in 2025

2025-01-07T00:02:18+00:00

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Education funding dominated the discussion at Chalkbeat Colorado’s annual Legislative Preview event Monday, as a panel of state lawmakers grappled with how Colorado will fund K-12 schools and public colleges in the face of looming budget cuts.

“We are in a very, very tight budget year,” said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who sits on the powerful Joint Budget Committee. “We have to cut.”

The 2025 legislative session starts Wednesday.

State lawmakers said they must cut between $700 million and $1 billion from Colorado’s $16 billion general fund budget to balance the state’s finances. Funding for K-12 schools accounts for about a third of that $16 billion, making it one of Colorado’s largest expenses alongside Medicaid.

Just last year state lawmakers voted to fully fund Colorado schools by eliminating a funding mechanism that withheld money from K-12 education to pay for other state budget priorities. All of the lawmakers on Chalkbeat’s panel said it is a top priority to ensure that the mechanism, known as the budget stabilization factor, doesn’t come back.

The five state lawmakers who joined us for the event were:

Sen. Jeff Bridges, an Arvada Democrat and chair of the Joint Budget Committee.
Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican who sits on the JBC.
House Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon, a Denver Democrat.
House Majority Co-Whip Matthew Martinez, a Monte Vista Democrat.
Rep. Lori Garcia Sander, a Republican from Eaton who was elected in November.

The event was moderated by Chalkbeat reporter Jason Gonzales and William Navarrete Moreno, a student at the University of Colorado Denver who is studying public health and is active with Young Invincibles, an organization that amplifies the voices of young adults.

A full video of the event is posted below. Here are some excerpts from the discussion, which also touched on child care, higher education, teacher recruitment and retention, and more. The excerpts have been edited for length and clarity.

State lawmakers may have to make deep cuts to Colorado’s budget this session. How might the cuts affect education? Which programs might end? What do you want to keep?

Kirkmeyer: With regard to cuts in the Department of Education, there’s about $81 million worth of grant programs … that don’t appear to be that equitable. In fact, the Department of Education gave us a survey that showed that … they’re going to a limited number of school districts.

Martinez: For higher education funding, and for our rural institutions as well, too, they deal with a lot of different scenarios. They’re on a different playing field. And so being able to really work toward preserving their funding as well, too, because they’re already operating on a shoestring budget and any cuts are going to be into the bone.

Gov. Jared Polis has proposed changing the way school districts are funded by basing their funding on current enrollment versus a multiyear average. That proposal could mean less money for districts with declining enrollment. Does the JBC support that?

Kirkmeyer: I don’t support the governor’s request. He wants to get rid of — I call them ghost kids. I know y’all call them phantom kids. … The JBC isn’t going to be making that decision — at least, not from my perspective. I won’t be supporting a bill that changes that. It needs to go through the school finance formula act … and it needs to have adequate debate on the floor and everybody needs to have the opportunity [to weigh in], including all the stakeholders.

Bridges: If we have to choose between adequately funding the students we have or funding districts for students they don’t have, I’m going to side with the students that actually exist every single time. … The phantom student piece is: Do we average attendance for schools over a five-year period or a four-year or a three-year or a two-year period? Or do we just fund the students they have right now? My guess is that we’ll end up somewhere along that spectrum, but no other state in the country funds districts with a rolling average of five years.

With the Trump administration’s plan to roll back policies that once barred ICE raids at schools, many undocumented students and families now fear attending school. Will you support state-level policies to prohibit immigration enforcement on school grounds?

Bacon: We don’t necessarily have anything on the books right now for sanctuary schools. However, we have passed laws and we do expect that those who have sworn to uphold those laws will uphold Colorado laws. And right now, our laws say we do not share data. We do not engage in immigration work that is reserved for the federal government. And therefore, we will expect that those laws and rules are upheld and that we do it in the interest of providing that confidence and safety for our young people, regardless of their immigration status.

Garcia Sander: So ultimately, I believe we just need to follow the laws that are in place, right? A lot of my career has been working with multilingual learners. I’ve been an [English language development] teacher … Rarely will it come up where I’ve had a student either in elementary, middle, or high school that has concerns, but there’s a culture in the districts where I’ve worked where we reassure students: Your job is to come here to school. We’re going to teach you no matter what. We support you no matter what. We’ll get you what you need no matter what. Let the grownups take care of the grownup stuff, and we’re going to take care of you here at school.

Colorado doesn’t have enough money for its program that provides free school meals to all students. An advisory group suggested ways to cut costs. How are you going to continue to fund this program? Will you have to cut it back?

Bridges: The referendum that went to the voters of Colorado had a lot of extraneous things in it, and they were all important and wonderful and great. And we don’t get nice-to-haves this year. … So all that other stuff [in the referendum], I don’t think that’s going to get funded. … Food for kids was the core of that question to voters. … And so we want to make sure that every kid in the state has that opportunity and that every kid is well-fed.

Kirkmeyer: There are some kids that are getting these meals that, you know, their parents can afford to pay for the meal themselves and we can make the program work for everybody else. … They actually need to come back — the Healthy School Meals [for All] folks and the Department of Education — with some ideas about where we can actually fund [the free meals program] within the ballot initiative that they passed.

What can the state legislature do to help attract and retain teachers?

Garcia Sander: I work in a rural school district and we have a huge challenge of attracting and retaining teachers. … We have started to source our high school students actually as pre-service paraprofessionals and thinking about, How can we get them enrolled [in teacher preparation programs]? Right now we’ve got a student teacher, she’s 21, and right out of high school, we hired her as a paraprofessional. And in her second year she was … long-term substitute teaching Spanish classes in our high school because we didn’t have a Spanish teacher. … And so we need to do what we can to create our own pipelines in districts.

Bacon: I did teacher recruitment for a long time, especially with teachers of color. And low-income people are more likely, even though they have [federal] Pell [grants] and whatnot, to borrow for [college] for living expenses. And to say that you need to come back out of school with $80,000 worth of debt and you make $35,000 a year is an actual challenge. And so we do need to think about our [state] revenues. … I got a [TABOR] refund of $8. For the low, low cost of $8, I’d rather put that back in the pot to have a music teacher.

One of the biggest expenses for families, particularly young families, is child care. What opportunities do you see to both increase the supply of high-quality child care, especially for infants and toddlers, while also lowering the cost?

Martinez: As the state of Colorado, the neighbors and taxpayers, we do need to talk about our revenues and how the state funds things, as well as what is the reality of living. … We have a state where people vote for the things that they want, like food for kids, right? That was a proposition. But there was also a proposition to spend $350 million on law enforcement. And so we have a world where our neighbors are talking about what we want and what we need, and they vote for it, but we’re not also talking about actually how much money we have and how do we prioritize things. … This $700 million structural deficit is the time for us to say — maybe this is rock bottom, but we do need to hear from people on what it is we need to prioritize.

Watch the full video below.

This story has been updated to clarify that $16 billion is the amount of Colorado’s general fund budget, not its total budget.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

How much more money would Colorado need to adequately teach students? New studies say $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion

2025-01-05T00:24:16+00:00

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Colorado would need to spend $3.5 billion to $4.1 billion more to adequately resource K-12 public schools and help students learn, according to two studies released Friday.

The studies, commissioned by state lawmakers and conducted by two independent groups, offer different models and figures to adequately fund schools. But they similarly say Colorado should dramatically increase K-12 spending beyond the $9.8 billion budgeted this year — an argument education advocates have made for years.

“The studies contain recommendations for increased funding, highlighting the challenges our schools face in providing every student — especially those with the greatest needs — the opportunities they deserve to thrive,” said Susana Córdova, Colorado education commissioner.

Córdova said the reports have been submitted to the General Assembly. It’s now up to lawmakers, who will convene next week, to decide how they want to proceed.

First, they’ll need to decide which of the two policy models offered in the reports they want to adopt — if they move forward at all. Then they will need to figure out how to increase the tax base to boost funding for schools.

The second point is especially important because the dramatic increase in funding the studies call for will likely be difficult based on the state’s tax collections.

This year, despite the state taking in more revenue, lawmakers are eyeing budget cuts to the state government to fulfill obligations in Medicaid costs and provide more funding for K-12 schools. The state has also struggled in past years to increase school funding at the minimum yearly level set by the state’s Constitution.

Future years’ revenue also likely won’t produce large windfalls that could cover such a massive increase unless lawmakers make changes.

What is an adequate level of funding?

The studies are part of a larger examination of the state’s funding landscape ordered by lawmakers in 2023.

The legislation created a School Finance Task Force, which last year recommended a revamp of the state’s 30-year-old school funding formula. Lawmakers acted, and the state is expected to spend $500 million more over six years to implement the formula. The formula aims to more equitably distribute resources to districts serving higher numbers of at-risk students, such as students from lower-income backgrounds, as well as small and rural schools.

However, the task force remained silent on the adequate amount of funding needed for schools. Task force members said formula changes would help guide future investments, such as those recommended Friday by the two research firms.

One study was conducted by the American Institutes for Research, or AIR, and the other by Augenblick, Palaich and Associates, Inc., or APA, in partnership with Picus, Odden & Associates, Afton Partners, and the Colorado School Finance Project.

The studies differ in their approach to how to spend the billions in K-12 investment. Currently, Colorado funds students at a base level and then adds money into district budgets based on student and district characteristics. The studies offer differing policies on which students get the most money.

What does the APA study say?

The APA report calls for about $3.5 billion more than what the state currently spends. It says the state should spend more money on all students, while giving districts a smaller additional amount to increase services for students with the highest needs.

The APA model dramatically increases the base spending per student to $12,346, well above the $$8,726 the study says the base is now. It then makes slight adjustments to the additional money schools get for different student characteristics already within the state’s current formula, such as students who are from lower-income backgrounds, those who need English-language services, or those who have disabilities.

The base cost would allow school leaders to pay for more staff and support as determined by the district. The additional staff and resources would support all students. Then the adjustments for student characteristics would go to supporting those specific students.

What does the AIR study say?

The AIR study calls for about $4.1 billion over what the state currently spends. The study sends less money to the districts for all students than the APA study, but sends much more money to be used on students with the highest needs. That means schools would get less overall for all students.

But schools would get more than double the base spending to support those students that have disabilities, who are English language learners, or who are from lower-income backgrounds.

Overall, this means that districts with a larger population of students with higher needs would get dramatically more money under this model.

The organization’s analysis says schools that serve students with the highest needs “have systematically lower student outcomes.”

The studies agree on higher teacher pay, more equitable taxes

Colorado should spend more money on teachers, both studies found, with AIR concluding that the state’s teachers are “poorly paid and inequitably distributed.”

The APA study also says more resources will help districts pay for higher teacher salaries. In Colorado, teacher pay is a local decision.

Schools that serve many students living in poverty have lower paid, less experienced teachers and higher teacher-to-student ratios, AIR and APA found. Such schools also receive less state and local funding than similar schools in wealthier communities, the studies said.

“With more adequate funding levels and funding more strongly distributed based on student needs, Colorado’s school districts — and particularly those with high student needs — would be able to address issues of teacher pay and hire more teachers,” the AIR study said.

Both studies also agreed that Colorado should address inequities in local tax revenue that helps fund schools. Districts with high property wealth can raise more money than districts with low property wealth while at the same time maintaining low tax rates. Districts with low property wealth tax their residents more but generate less school funding from it.

The result, the AIR study said, is “that students who reside in wealthier areas typically attend better funded schools.”

Colorado Bureau Chief Melanie Asmar contributed.

Revised Polis budget plan would keep new school funding formula on track for 6-year phase-in period

2025-01-03T01:34:22+00:00

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Colorado’s new school finance formula got some good news Thursday when Gov. Jared Polis changed course on his budget request for the upcoming year.

In his updated request for the 2025-26 budget, Polis asked lawmakers for $150 million to start phasing in funding for the new formula. That’s a $35 million increase from the budget the governor proposed in November, and would put the formula on track to be phased in over six years.

Lawmakers passed the new formula last year. The formula will more equitably distribute state funding based on the types of students districts teach, and help rural and smaller districts.

The updates to the governor’s budget are part of a months-long process. Such amendments from the governor occur every year at the beginning of January.

With the state facing a budget shortfall due to the increase in funding obligations, especially for Medicaid, the blueprint Polis released in November called for Colorado to phase in the formula over seven years, instead of the six lawmakers originally envisioned. But the state’s revenue forecast has improved slightly since then, even though the state still must make cuts to balance the budget and fulfill obligations, according to a news release from Polis.

“Even in a tight budget year, these investments will help all Colorado students thrive,” Polis said.

Polis’ November proposal sparked concern from school district leaders, as well as members of the powerful Joint Budget Committee.

However, Polis did not defuse all controversy in his revised budget plan. He’s maintaining his desire to change how the state calculates student enrollment for the purpose of the budget. The governor’s proposal would use a single year count of enrollment, instead of a four-year average, to fund schools.

District leaders have said that the proposal hurts schools in districts that are losing students. A four-year average allows schools to lessen the budget impact of enrollment declines. Polis has countereded that the single year of enrollment data eliminates spending on “phantom students,” or students who are no longer enrolled in a district, and aligns the state with other states across the nation.

The Joint Budget Committee will take Polis’ supplemental budget requests into consideration, and draft the budget that lawmakers vote on during the session. Polis also included these items in his budget amendments released Thursday:

An additional $12 million to support students who are at risk, such as students from lower-income backgrounds.
$10 million more for the Child Care Assistance Program to help address new mandates that aren’t funded by the federal government.
Almost $30 million more to support school meals for this and the next budget year.
The restoration of $14.6 million for Colorado’s rural colleges and universities.
An additional $3.3 million for Colorado’s Universal Preschool program for providers.

Nine Colorado education stories to watch in 2025

2024-12-23T20:59:33+00:00

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For Colorado schools, 2024 was a year of big changes in funding, continued concerns about declining enrollment even amid the arrival of thousands of new immigrant students, and the growing popularity of a free preschool program that faces big legal challenges.

Here are some of the issues we’re watching in 2025.

How might Trump’s immigration policies affect migrant students?

In 2024, at least 85 Colorado school districts enrolled more than 8,000 migrant students combined. Many came from Venezuela and other South American countries. State lawmakers sent districts an additional $24 million to help serve new students who arrived mid-year.

Migrant students boosted enrollment in districts where there had been declines, including Denver. Teachers scrambled to support them, both academically and with basic needs like housing. Some of those efforts were beautiful. Others were hard. And some were both.

“The bright spots are the growth of our kids and our community,” Valdez Elementary Principal Jessica Buckley told Chalkbeat in February. “The challenge is resources.”

It’s unclear how President-elect Donald Trump’s promise of increased immigration enforcement — and potential mass deportations — will impact migrant students, their families, and the schools that serve them. Some Colorado school district leaders are already preparing: The Colorado Association of School Boards recently invited a Nebraska superintendent who had experienced an immigration raid to talk to state leaders about his experience. His advice?

“Be prepared,” former Superintendent Steve Joel told Colorado school officials. “Your community, your parents, your leaders, your state, they’ll appreciate you for it.”

Appeals court could decide Colorado’s Catholic preschool case

A federal appeals court could decide in 2025 whether religious schools in Colorado’s state-funded preschool program have to abide by non-discrimination rules protecting LGBTQ children and families.

That’s the issue at the heart of a lawsuit brought by two Denver-area Catholic parishes that run preschools. The Catholic preschools wanted to join the state preschool program, but didn’t want to admit LGBTQ children or children from LGBTQ families. The lawsuit is one of several cases involving the state’s universal preschool program.

A lower court judge largely ruled against the Catholic parishes in June, but they’re now appealing. Experts say the case, which pits religious liberty against LGBTQ rights, could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dusk falls over the Community College of Aurora Lowry Campus in Denver.

Colorado faces budget challenges that could impact education

In November, Gov. Jared Polis released a proposed budget that showed the state could have less revenue during a time when its financial obligations for programs like Medicaid have gone up. Recent revenue projections have improved, but the state is still facing a budget hole.

Polis' budget calls for cuts, including a big change to how the state doles out funding to school districts based on student enrollment and scaling back a new funding formula passed last year. (More on that new formula below.) Meanwhile, Polis’ budget calls for higher education to get a modest $12.1 million increase.

Lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee have the most say in crafting the budget. They will have plenty to sort through in the coming months.

How much is adequate education funding in Colorado?

Colorado lawmakers approved a brand new funding formula last year — the first major revamp since 1993. However, the formula didn’t say whether the new funding levels were enough.

So how much money do school districts need to adequately teach students?

Colorado commissioned two “adequacy studies” to understand the answer. Those studies are due at the beginning of the year.

Colorado could require more emphasis on climate science

In recent months, numerous Colorado high school students have told the State Board of Education they’ve learned little or nothing about climate change during their K-12 careers.

In December, the board took a preliminary step to address those concerns by asking education department officials to recommend changes to the state science standards that would put more emphasis on climate science.

The science standards — basically a big list of knowledge and skills Colorado students should have in various areas — are due to be revised in 2025.

The state’s current science standards reference climate change in middle school and high school, but not elementary school. If the standards change, teachers will have to adapt their lessons over the next few years to match the standards.

Schmitt Elementary School in Denver will close at the end of the 2024-25 school year.

School closures will prompt decisions about vacant buildings

Seven Denver schools will close in the spring of 2025, and three more schools will partially close, due to declining enrollment in Colorado’s largest school district. That decision was controversial, and a parent group has filed a lawsuit to try to stop it.

The Jeffco and Aurora school districts have also closed schools recently because of declining enrollment, and Douglas County School District is expected to do the same in 2025.

The school closures will leave districts grappling with another big question: what to do with the vacant buildings. Denver has promised not to sell any schools and to consult with the community on future uses. Meanwhile, Jeffco is in the midst of several sales that could be finalized next year, and Aurora is still deciding what to do with at least one building.

Low-income families face child care hardship

Many Colorado families who qualify for state child care subsidies could be out of luck next year. That’s because the program is facing a funding shortfall and state officials expect most counties to institute subsidy waitlists or freezes by June.

These measures won’t cut off families who currently receive subsidies. But it will limit the number of new families who can join.

So far, at least seven counties have already instituted a subsidy waitlist or a freeze: Adams, Boulder, Douglas, El Paso, Gunnison, Jefferson, and Larimer.

Some communities that have passed lodging taxes or tapped other local funding may be able to fill the gap created by subsidy waitlists or freezes. But that will be a partial fix at best.

Future of DACA teachers unclear as Trump takes over

During his first administration, Trump tried to end a program that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, a group known as Dreamers, from deportation. But his effort to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program stalled in the courts.

Now, there are signs Trump has had a change of heart. In a Dec. 8 interview on Meet the Press, when asked if he wants to let the so-called Dreamers stay in the country, he said, “I do … I think we can work with the Democrats and work something out.”

But given his promise of mass deportations and his past vacillation on whether Dreamers deserve protection, some immigrants rights groups are skeptical. Colorado has about 12,000 DACA recipients and some are public school teachers.

Colorado’s career and college readiness programs hit crossroads

In 2022, Colorado lawmakers commissioned a report on how to improve postsecondary and workforce readiness. Released in late 2023, it offered 13 recommendations for streamlining a fragmented system of state programs meant to prepare students for college and careers.

State lawmakers then commissioned a study, released this month, that called for big changes, including bringing the disparate programs under one roof. The report also recommended either ending or reworking a popular fifth-year high school program called ASCENT.

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Jeffco, Adams 12 among districts that could see fewer Title I schools after Medicaid cuts

2024-12-11T05:40:52+00:00

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This fall, fewer students at some Colorado schools are being counted as at-risk because pandemic-era rules for Medicaid left many families suddenly unenrolled by spring 2024.

Students enrolled in Medicaid are automatically counted as at-risk students in calculations about funding. A drop in the number of at-risk students can cause some schools to lose federal Title I funding used to help those students, who generally have higher educational or social-emotional needs.

The Jeffco district, the second largest in Colorado, told its school board last month that 6,000 of the district’s approximately 75,600 students were unenrolled from Medicaid.

At some schools, the decrease in at-risk students may be enough to drop a school below the required threshold to receive Title I money. Currently in Jeffco, that threshold is 55%, but may change for next year.

Title I funding varies between schools and districts, but in Jeffco, on average schools get about $900 extra for each at-risk student. The money is used to hire additional staff and provide extra resources.

Some families are worried that their children’s schools could lose that funding. Edgewater Elementary School parent Angela Cryan took her concerns to the Jeffco school board last month.

“We are so concerned, and the families that are here tonight with me are so concerned, about losing the funding that is critical even for one year,” Cryan told school board members and the superintendent. “Whatever that amount is, it is too much to lose for our students.”

Superintendent Tracy Dorland told Cryan not to fear. Dorland said Edgewater Elementary would still qualify for Title I funds next school year.

District officials have refused to share school-level data, saying that everything is still being reviewed for accuracy. Official enrollment demographic data is usually published by the state in January.

For students who were unenrolled or those who aren’t eligible for Medicaid, including students from families that may not have legal status, parents can still fill out free and reduced-price lunch forms and, if eligible, be counted in at-risk figures that way.

The district has shared the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-price meals. The figures are usually similar to at-risk numbers. At-risk counts include all students who are eligible to receive subsidized meals, but also other students including those who receive Medicaid. Overall, the district projects the percentage of students eligible for subsidized meals will be 31% this school year, down from 34% last school year.

The trend of having fewer students eligible for subsidized meals, and fewer at-risk students, is not unexpected, Jeffco leaders told the school board.

“That’s actually about what we thought was going to happen over time,” said Brenna Copeland, chief financial officer for Jeffco Public Schools. “The reality is the counts district-wide are going down, and that’s going to impact, over time, our Title I district-wide.”

Kym LeBlanc-Esparza, deputy superintendent in Jeffco, said the district has not set the percentage threshold that determines which schools will get Title I funding next year.

“We’re still going back and forth, making sure we have exactly what those numbers are,” she said.

Title I trends were worrying districts before the pandemic

Before the pandemic, districts were having to adjust the bar for which schools receive Title I status. Despite declining enrollment and overall stable numbers of students from low-income families, the distribution of those students was not even within districts. Students from high-poverty households tended to be concentrated in select schools. That meant that more schools were more likely to hit the thresholds of 65, 70, or 75% of students in poverty, for example, to qualify for the funding.

More schools qualifying for Title I status in a district can be a problem, because it doesn’t necessarily mean the district is receiving more federal funding for those schools. The federal government has a different calculation based on census data for determining how much funding to send districts.

That data doesn’t take into account school choice laws that allow Colorado students to attend schools outside their neighborhoods, changing the demographic makeup of students at schools when compared to their community.

Districts also have flexibility to determine which schools will receive the money. They specify the percentage of at-risk students schools must have to be considered Title I.

In Jeffco, that bar is currently set at 55%, and this year, 31 schools are receiving Title I funding.

Pandemic-related demographic changes and the state’s 2023 decision to use Medicaid eligibility to determine the number of at-risk students in a school initially made the numbers rise, but those numbers could decrease now in districts like Jeffco and Adams 12.

Jeffco leaders wouldn’t say how many schools could lose the funding if the current threshold of 55% was used for next year. Officials are deciding whether or not to change it.

If the decision causes some schools to lose eligibility, the district can do a phase out so that schools don’t immediately lose the funding when their demographics change, LeBlanc-Esparza said.

In Adams 12, Gina Lanier, the district’s chief financial officer, said the district is seeing a drop of about 3,900 students who qualify as at-risk based on Medicaid eligibility. Last year, about 50% of the district’s nearly 35,000 students qualified for subsidized meals, meaning they were counted as at-risk students.

Overall, Lanier predicts the number of students who qualify for free meals in Adams 12 will have dropped this school year by more than 6%.

Lanier said if Adams 12 keeps the thresholds it currently has for Title I eligibility, five schools will no longer qualify for the funding next school year.

As budget planning gets underway, Lanier said the district will discuss whether to change those thresholds or create a plan to support schools that would lose funding so that it’s phased out instead of immediately going to zero.

In the Aurora school district, leaders have pushed the threshold for how many at-risk students a school must have to receive Title I to the federal government’s maximum allowed limit of 75%. The district had 14 new schools qualify last year and is now at 31.

But Aurora, and other metro area school districts, said they’re not expecting declines in the number of schools qualifying for Title I status.

How one Jeffco school uses Title I funding

Although Title I money is important, it’s not the only source of extra funding for schools with lots of at-risk students. Many districts also direct state and local dollars to these schools.

In Jeffco, for example, the district money given to schools for at-risk students is significantly more than what the schools get for having Title I status. The money is given on a per-student basis regardless of whether a school meets a threshold, which can make the total funding amount less likely to change by large amounts from one year to the next.

Principal Megan Martinez of Deane Elementary in Jeffco said her school in Lakewood has had Title I status for several years, and that the funding is helpful in supporting the needs of her students.

Enrollment at Deane this fall is up compared to what was expected, and Martinez is seeing a major increase in the number of students who are learning English as a new language. Many of the new students are newcomers and English learners.

The percentage of students qualifying for free or reduced-price meals appears to be holding steady. Last year, about 82% of Deane’s nearly 300 students qualified for subsidized meals. Martinez said the school helps families fill out the free lunch applications and explains other available benefits.

At Deane, Martinez said she uses the Title I funding primarily to hire teachers to keep class sizes small, or to avoid having to do combined-grade classrooms. The funding also pays for a restorative practice liaison, two interventionists helping teachers work on reading and math instruction, and supplements the school’s mental health resources.

This year, that means that in addition to the full-time social worker paid for by the district based on the number of students who have special needs, Deane’s Title I funds pay for an additional social worker to come in at least two days per week.

“They might support with setting lessons around behavior expectations, they might pull a friendship group or lunch bunch or another targeted group working on relationship skills, or do crisis response,” Martinez said. “We wouldn’t be able to do that without Title funding.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Working group recommends prioritizing rural Colorado districts in program meant to ease funding gaps

2024-12-05T22:22:48+00:00

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Rural school districts that don’t generate much money from their community’s property taxes would be prioritized in changes to a state match program, letting those districts raise at least $200,000 when voters approve a new tax.

That’s one of the recommendations approved Wednesday by a working group tasked with proposing changes to Colorado’s state match program for mill levy overrides.

Overrides provide local funding for schools when voters approve taxes on top of regular school funding taxes. Some Colorado districts have voter-approved overrides that give them the maximum allowed of extra funds, 25% or 30% more than their general funding. Other districts have never been able to get voters to approve an additional tax. In some communities, the reason districts don’t ask voters is because the amount generated wouldn’t add much to their budget.

The group described the issue as one of the state’s biggest inequities in school finance, but also the most challenging to tackle. That’s because there are a variety of reasons that communities don’t approve new taxes, and because in places where they do, there are also many reasons overrides don’t generate comparable amounts across different communities.

Lawmakers, with help from finance officials from school districts, created the state’s match program in 2022. But district leaders have complained that the program has not helped much to close the disparities between what district’s can raise in additional local funds.

In 2022-23, the state gave $10 million to 27 districts through the program. More than half of the districts received less than $50,000 from the state. For the 2023-24 school year, lawmakers increased the matching funds to $21.1 million but then ended up distributing a second round of $15.7 million to additional districts after criticism of the program. The solution was a temporary one and so lawmakers created the working group to look more closely at the problem with the funding model.

Under the recommended new distribution model from the working group, which is made up of two lawmakers and seven school district finance leaders, districts classified as rural and small-rural by the state would have a different formula for eligibility and for calculating a match than urban or suburban districts.

Rural districts that are eligible based on existing voter-approved mill levy overrides, and the amount of assessed value in their community, would be topped off by the state to ensure that their override is producing a minimum of $200,000 per year.

The group proposed that the state would first dole out funding to those rural districts — currently, its estimate is that it would cost about $6 million in the first year.

Then the state would distribute the rest of the money that the legislature can appropriate each year to the urban and suburban districts after. For this second tier, the state would calculate eligibility and match amounts using a similar model to the one it already uses, except for one change to the metrics that allows at least one more district, Adams 12, to be eligible for the match.

Unlike for rural and small-rural districts, the proposed calculation for larger districts takes into account a community’s median income.

For the second group of districts, the state estimates the cost would be about $21.5 million, but could be adjusted down based on what’s left over after rural districts are prioritized.

Having a two-tiered approach “really represents a significant approach of maximizing what we can do with scarce amounts of dollars,” said one group member, Brett Johnson, the chief financial officer for the Aurora school district, who helped come up with the idea.

“No matter what manipulation you’re making to the formula, from my perspective, it was rural and small rural that got the short end of the stick,” he added. “They got significantly lower amounts that sometimes didn’t make sense.”

In one previous year, one district got only about $2,000 in total from the state match program.

One group member said she expected having a minimum state match would help more districts use the program to ask voters to approve new mill levy overrides where they haven’t in the past.

But if that holds true, some group members raised concerns that the cost of the program could quickly rise. To be eligible for a match, a community must first have a mill levy override tax. If more districts are able to convince their voters who have never approved a mill levy override tax before, based on the incentive of the state match, more districts will be eligible for state dollars.

The working group also voted to recommend that the state report a breakdown of how much money is being distributed to school districts from the program so that lawmakers may adjust the program’s formula again in the coming years.

The working group will lay out its recommendations in a final report expected to be published in the next couple of weeks.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

After Polis’ budget proposal, school leaders worry Colorado will change course on last year’s school funding promises

2024-11-15T23:39:35+00:00

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Colorado districts expect millions in cuts to what they anticipated receiving next year if changes proposed by Gov. Jared Polis make it into the 2025-26 budget.

Polis, who released his budget proposal on Nov. 1, has presented austerity measures due to the state facing an over half billion dollar budget hole.

His plan would increase school funding by about $115 million next year, bringing total spending to $9.8 billion. However, district leaders said that would be far less than what they are supposed to get, with school finance advocates calculating schools receiving about $190 million less next year if Polis’ changes are enacted.

The powerful six-member Joint Budget Committee, which does the majority of the work crafting the budget, would need to adopt his proposals. Committee lawmakers have expressed concerns.

And district leaders in the Metro area worry that Polis’ budget framework opens up the possibility for the state to find a new way to cut their budgets after lawmakers during the 2024 legislative session eliminated a practice this year that withholds money from schools for other priorities. District leaders say the changes would also exacerbate funding disparities and lead to harmful cuts for students, especially in districts grappling with declining enrollment.

Ultimately, the JBC and Colorado General Assembly will have the most say on how the state proceeds in terms of the budget, said Chuck Carpenter, Denver Public Schools chief financial officer. The district likely won’t see a major impact in funding cuts compared to other districts if the proposal goes through.

But the proposal makes budget planning difficult and, if passed, would fail to meet the promises made last year by lawmakers.

“This is just another way where K-12 is used to balance the budget,” Carpenter said.

District leaders hoped for stability in the 2025-26 budget

During the 2024 legislative session, school officials celebrated after lawmakers pushed to invest more in K-12 education.

Lawmakers eliminated the so-called budget stabilization factor after 15 years, which diverted constitutionally-mandated school funding for other priorities.

They also were able to approve a new school funding model that’s expected to boost state spending by $500 million. The law called for phasing the money in over six years and will better distribute state funding based on the types of students districts teach and help rural and smaller districts. The law also changed student enrollment counts from five to four years for the purpose of the budget.

Polis’ budget proposal tries to address an about $640 million budget shortfall next fiscal year, partly due to rising costs in Medicaid. At the same time, the state is limited by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights in how much revenue the state can keep.

His budget framework would change the student counts from the planned four-year average to a single year count. If lawmakers approve the change, this would have the biggest impact on schools with declining enrollment because averaging creates a multi-year buffer for them.

The governor also wants to slow the phase-in of the new school finance formula to seven years.

Jefferson County School District Superintendent Tracy Dorland said her district has made hard decisions to close schools as enrollment has declined. In Colorado, many districts have experienced enrollment declines.

Any funding change would cause even more disruptions for her students and families, she said.

“They need to leave things alone for a minute so that we have some clarity and some stability in our revenue models,” Dorland said.

In proposing the change, Polis has pointed to the majority of states that use one-year counts. He also said his proposal would fend off any return to using the budget stabilization factor.

Nationally, since the pandemic, some states have started to do the opposite of what Polis has proposed, according to Christopher Duncombe, Education Commission of the States principal, who is a school finance expert.

He said a few states have opted to blend enrollment across multiple years to protect districts with declining enrollment from financial losses. For example, California allows districts to choose between a one-year count or a three-year average.

Tracie Rainey, Colorado School Finance Project executive director, added a change would also pull money away from schools during a time when the state is still awaiting a study that shows how much schools need to adequately educate students.

Her analysis shows the $191 million cuts would unevenly impact districts, with some receiving a 33% cut in what they expected while others would see zero impact.

“It’s not bringing back the budget stabilization factor, but in all essence, it’s a cut to K-12,” she said.

Polis’ proposal sparks district and lawmaker concern

On Wednesday, during a presentation from Polis, budget lawmakers shared reservations about enacting his plan. The Joint Budget Committee does the bulk of the work to craft the budget.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican, said she was finding it difficult to take Polis’ budget seriously because it doesn’t keep the promises made by the legislature in the last year.

“I’m very disappointed that it looks like we’re actually cutting funding to K-12 education,” Kirkmeyer said.

Dorland said her district would get about $23 million less under this proposal.

“And this is after, since 2009, $10 billion that has been withheld from Colorado public education,” she said. “The JBC really needs to think about how removing averaging will impact districts across the state and the impact we’ve already had over the last decade.”

Cherry Creek School District Chief Financial and Operating Officer Scott Smith said although his district didn’t experience enrollment declines this year, the elimination of averaging would still impact his district by about $10 to $15 million.

“We’ve shortchanged a generation of kids,” Smith said. “We should be doing everything we can to not allow that to happen again.”

Meanwhile, Chris Gdowksi, Adams 12 superintendent, said three Adams County districts, including his, are some of the lowest-funded in the Metro area and his district would get about $13.8 million less than expected. Other districts in the area have a buffer because they raise more local property tax dollars for schools.

Changes to the state budget are felt more acutely in the three districts because of low property tax wealth, he said.

For Adams 12, Gdowksi said he might have to cut positions such as support staff, hold off on crucial raises in a district that has struggled to stay competitive with the surrounding area, and increase class sizes.

Gdowksi said funding for public education needs a long-term solution. He, like other district leaders, said he would like to see a bipartisan-backed statewide ballot measure to raise more funding for schools. And he’s hopeful lawmakers will find a different way to balance the budget in the short-term.

“I am hopeful that folks can lean in and find a different way,” Gdowski said. “There are different and better ways to get there.”

Despite early returns, last ballots counted show voters approve Adams 14 ballot measures

2024-11-14T22:56:22+00:00

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Despite early disappointment, Adams 14 leaders are celebrating as unofficial final election results this week show voters passed both of the district’s tax requests.

The district hadn’t had a local tax measure approved by voters since 2006, when a bond was passed to build the new high school.

Adams County’s last update to election numbers Thursday showed the district’s mill levy request, 4A, winning by 241 votes, and the district’s bond request, 4B, winning by 109 votes. Results will continue to be considered unofficial until after the usual audit process, with certification expected Nov. 26.

District leaders had initially released a statement expressing their disappointment when it appeared last week that both measures would fail, but the district sent out a new statement on Thursday thanking voters.

“The passing of the bond and mill levy demonstrates the increasing support and trust of the Adams 14 community,” said Superintendent Karla Loría in the statement. “This funding will allow us to upgrade our facilities, improve our learning environments, and ensure our teachers and staff receive the compensation they deserve.”

The district wanted the funding from the mill levy override to raise salaries for teachers and school staff but is not planning to raise administrator salaries.

The bond funding will help the district pay for building a new middle school to house seventh and eighth graders from both Kearney Middle School and Adams City High School, which will merge.

Other district schools will also get building repairs for safety and HVAC improvements, as well as new furniture for classrooms.

Loría said the next step is for the committee that worked on the campaign to meet again, this time as the new oversight committee for the spending of the bond, to come up with a timeline and next steps.

The district will also need to meet with the union to negotiate the staff salary increases.

For the middle school merger, the district is still conducting more community outreach. The district, like others in the metro area, has seen a drop in enrollment over the last several years.

Loría expects in the next couple of months to select a transition site where this year’s sixth graders will go in the fall of 2025, while current middle schools start to get phased out.

The district also must select a permanent new site for the joint new building sometime this school year. Once a site is selected, Loría said the district will also have discussions about whether transportation services will need to expand to help students who currently walk to their middle schools.

Loría also wants voters to know she’s working on creating several ways for the community to be able to track how the money gets spent, like a new website, as well as ways for the community to give feedback and “be able to share what they really appreciate and what concerns they may have.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado voters seem poised to approve about half of the school district funding measures this year

2024-11-08T22:52:13+00:00

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When it came to giving schools more local funding, Colorado voters were reluctant to raise taxes this year.

Typically presidential election years can be good years for districts to ask voters to raise taxes for schools. But this year, only about half of the requests, or 22 out of 41, were successful, according to unofficial results as of Friday morning. That’s fewer than in 2020 when about 90% of the measures were successful and also in 2016 when 68% of measures passed.

This year, of those 22 that voters approved, only 11 were actually tax increases.

Many of the successful ballot measures from school districts this year can at least in part attribute their success to the fact that they could say to voters that approving the measure wouldn’t mean a new or higher property tax.

In the Adams 12 school district north of Denver, the district’s two requests had split results, precisely on that basis.

The district was able to ask voters to incur new bond debt, but it would be able to pay for it with the existing tax collections. Voters widely supported that measure. It’s going to help rebuild the deteriorating Thornton High School, add a new central kitchen and warehouse, as well as pay for other maintenance of schools.

But in a bid for a new mill levy override that would provide ongoing dollars to raise teacher salaries, Adams 12 voters rejected the measure. If approved, homeowners would have had to pay about $2.04 per month per $100,000 in home value.

“We know the burden is higher,” said Adams 12 Superintendent Chris Gdowski. “Incomes are tight and squeezing in more. We know that was beyond what our families were able to do.”

Still, the district is going to continue to help the community understand school budgets, including possible revenue losses the district might face, and then do polling again later this school year to figure out “if things have changed with the property tax pinch.” Gdowski said the plan would likely be to ask voters again either in 2025 or 2026.

Denver and Aurora school districts had some of the largest funding requests on the ballot, and neither required those communities to pay a higher tax rate. Both measures were approved by large margins.

All of the measures that failed would have meant higher property taxes for homeowners. That includes measures for the Thompson school district, Pueblo County 70, several in Weld County including Weld Re-8 in Fort Lupton. In Adams 14, initial results seemed to indicate that both the district’s request for a bond and mill levy would be rejected, but by Friday, the margins had closed in and the mill levy measure was losing by only one vote. The Adams 14 measures would cost homeowners $6.52 per month per $100,000 of home value.

In Douglas County, where the district had struggled to pass a bond request for the last two years, voters approved a bond this year that — this time — did not require a higher tax rate. The money will go to building new schools in growing parts of the county.

The few districts that did pass a tax measure that required a higher tax rate include the Poudre school district in northern Colorado, Cherry Creek, Platte Valley in Weld County, Harrison in Colorado Springs, Durango, and Montezuma – which was successful in passing a mill levy override for the first time ever.

In Cherry Creek, voters were asked to approve a bond for $950 million and a mill levy override to net $9 million that together would cost homeowners $3 per month per $100,000.

The Harrison mill levy override to also get $9 million will cost those homeowners $5.31 per month per $100,000 of a home’s value, and that’s without a bond.

Disparities in local tax revenue for Colorado schools are growing, causing inequities and concern

Harrison Superintendent Wendy Birhanzel said that she knows in her community, which has many low-income families, making the request was a challenge. She thinks it helped that the last time voters approved a tax increase for a bond the district used it to improve all buildings.

“It showed our community that when we have a plan we will follow it,” Birhanzel said.

The mill levy override would pay for increased teacher salaries. But voters in Harrison also might have been showing support for another program that would be paid for with the new funding: continuing a scholarship program for all district graduates.

The scholarship started three years ago. With the approved funding, it will go to students regardless of other funding they get for college, which means they can get the district scholarship to cover tuition and then still receive other scholarships or federal funding to help with other expenses. Families may have seen the program as a direct return on investment, she said.

“It really truly creates equity for our kids,” Birhanzel said. “Our families really have got behind that.”

Holyoke, in the northeast corner of the state, was able to pass a measure that required a new tax for bonds that would only kick in if the state gets a grant to help build a new elementary school. The district last year didn’t get the grant, but the district plans to try again this year. School districts that win the state’s BEST grants for help with capital projects must have some matching funds to pay for the cost – and the Holyoke voter approval will assure the district has that this time.

Superintendent Kyle Stumpf said it was an “extremely difficult ask” for his community. As of Thursday, the measure was winning with just 70 votes.

“Our farming and ranching community supports our district very well and have always supported us, but it’s been extremely tight this year,” Stumpf said.

What made the difference, he thinks, is that parents of elementary children who attend the school building, which was built in 1954, have seen that maintenance problems are getting worse.

There have been main-water line breaks, one of the original 1954-electrical outlets caught fire, and on Election Day this week, the elementary school had to be evacuated for a gas leak. Officials ended up finding not one but three gas leaks in the school’s boiler room.

Plus, he said, the school building doesn’t have a lot of capacity to work with the technology students use now, or to accommodate smaller learning environments where teachers can work with students who need different support, including English learners.

“The building has served its purpose, but it was not designed for today’s type of education,” Stumpf said.

He said the district is “just very fortunate,” that it seems a majority of voters approved the measure. He said he expects it will be an investment that will serve the community for a long time.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Jared Polis’ budget would slow the phase-in of Colorado’s new school funding formula

2024-11-02T00:33:19+00:00

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Colorado school districts would no longer be funded based on a four-year enrollment average under a 2025-26 budget proposal released by Gov. Jared Polis Friday.

Instead, Polis is proposing to fund school districts based on a current-year enrollment estimate, a change that could mean less money for districts with declining enrollment, such as Denver.

At the same time, the governor’s proposal would phase-in a new school funding formula over the course of seven years, instead of six. The school funding formula, which was approved last year, dictates how much state money each district gets per student. The new formula is expected to help districts serving students with more needs and in rural parts of the state.

Both of Polis’ budget proposals are meant to save the state money.

Polis said the changes would help balance the budget over the long term to ensure the state doesn’t return to withholding funding from schools for other priorities — a maneuver called the budget stabilization factor. In the short term, it also helps free up money during a year when state lawmakers will need to plug a $640 million budget hole.

“We’re belt-tightening and cutting agencies and cutting budgets where we can,” Polis said, “and then making sure that we can deliver on funding our schools.”

In total, Polis has proposed a $46.1 billion budget, a 10% increase over last year. His budget includes a $115 million increase to this year’s $9.8 billion K-12 budget, and it would increase per pupil funding to an average of $11,747. His budget doesn’t account for ballot measures that will be voted on next week.

Colorado’s budget process requires Polis to present a budget by Nov. 1 each year. The powerful six-member Joint Budget Committee, which writes the budget and has the most say on spending, will begin crafting a proposal that will be released in March or April.

Colorado is constitutionally mandated to increase school funding by the rate of population growth plus inflation.

Funding school districts based on a four-year enrollment average protects them from a single year enrollment drop that would greatly reduce funding from the state. But it also places the state on the hook for students that might no longer attend that district.

Polis’ proposal wouldn’t change when schools get money for the year. Funding is based on an estimate made in July, then if the official student count in October is lower or higher, the state makes budgetary adjustments. Under the proposal, those adjustments could be steeper if districts experience enrollment fluctuations from year to year.

Colorado Budget Director Mark Ferrandino said districts would need to make budgetary decisions much sooner if they’re going through enrollment declines.

“That’s going to be the biggest impact,” Ferrandino said.

Polis also emphasized that no other state calculates student populations based on a four-year average for the purpose of the budget.

“Basically, districts will have to adapt to enrollment a little quicker than they have, especially districts that are experiencing changes and major changes,” he said. He added that “they can do that because they do it in 41 other states.”

The slower implementation of the formula change will also have an effect on districts.

Last year, education advocates and many district leaders pushed for an overhaul to a 30-year-old formula that’s expected to give less consideration to the cost of living in an area and more money to districts serving larger numbers of students in poverty and English learners. Small and rural districts would also benefit.

Yet it’s also a costly endeavor that will take another $500 million in education funding to implement.

Under the six-year plan, the budget this year would have required about 18% of the $500 million needed to phase-in the formula.

Polis’ budget would spend about 10% of the $500 million in the 2025-26 year. The state would then spend 20% the year after under his proposal. Then, the state would switch back and forth annually until the formula is fully phased in.

“There’s a lot of excitement on both sides of the aisle about the new school finance and funding students where they are,” he said, “and we just need to make sure that we can do it in a way that’s sustainable.”

In a news release, Republican House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, a Colorado Springs Republican, said she appreciates that the governor wants to avoid withholding money from schools, but the finance reforms will not occur soon enough.

“Colorado families can’t wait seven years for an updated formula to roll out — our students deserve real support now,” she said.

Also included in Polis’ 2025-26 budget:

A cap on the BEST program, which provides capital funds for schools. The cap is a cost saving measure that takes money from the program to spend on funding schools and would generate about $60 million to $80 million for the State Public School Fund.
A $13.5 million increase for school categorical funding, or money meant to help specific groups of students such as English learners or students with special needs.
$2 million to support students in the state’s lowest-rated schools, known as turnaround and priority improvement schools. The ratings are largely based on student test scores.
A $12.1 million increase for college and university budgets and student financial aid. The money would increase state funding only slightly above the $1.6 billion this year. His administration also has proposed a 2.3% increase for in-state tuition.
$11.7 million for Colorado’s child care subsidy, or CCCAP, to help make child care more affordable and increase provider rates.
$7.8 million more for the third year of the state’s Universal Preschool program.
$3.6 million to support Early Intervention efforts meant to help children under 2 with developmental delays.

Jeffco schools didn’t ask for a tax increase from voters this year. Here’s why.

2024-10-30T22:47:14+00:00

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The Jeffco school district is one of only a few large Colorado districts that isn’t asking residents to vote for additional local revenue this election.

The district is under financial strain and in the spring considered asking voters to approve a mill levy override this year, but consultants recommended putting it off. They pointed out the district has faced challenges when trying to pass tax requests, and homeowners are already struggling with a rise in property taxes.

“There are many factors that would support an MLO, including a strong desire for higher teacher pay, but those supportive indicators are simply no match for voters’ current feelings against higher property tax rates,” consultants wrote in a presentation to the board.

Board members identified another challenge: a disconnect between the district and the community in understanding the district’s financial decisions and how schools are funded, leading to trust issues.

Now, the district is taking this year to examine what budget cuts are needed to balance the budget after prioritizing staff raises this year. The district is also working on a long-term facilities plan that could provide a blueprint for future projects.

When the Jeffco school board approved this year’s $1.01 billion budget, paid for in part with $39 million from reserves, board members acknowledged that using district savings won’t be sustainable in the long term.

The district has pulled around $30 million from its reserves to cover its budget for the last couple of years, but without major changes, there likely won’t be enough reserves to draw from as soon as fall 2026, leaders have said.

“At the same time, we recognize the risk to our students if we are not able to compete for talented educators and staff when our neighboring districts can afford higher salaries,” school board president Mary Parker said at the time.

Jeffco negotiated to give teachers about a 5% cost of living salary increase this year as well as a onetime 2% payment from reserves.

This year’s base starting salary for Jeffco teachers of $55,256 is in line with Denver’s starting salary, but still lower than other neighboring districts.

“We have directed Superintendent Dorland to work throughout the 2024-25 school year to identify and recommend structural adjustments to the district budget. Given that our budget is 87% salaries, it will be important for the district to analyze and adjust staffing levels to realities of our declining student enrollment,” Parker said when the budget was approved.

Student enrollment in Jeffco schools has decreased by 7,876 or 9.37% from 2019-20. The district has closed 21 schools in the last several years due to declining enrollment and projections that declines will continue. The number of teachers in that same time period, according to state figures, has only decreased by 5%.

The school closures were not primarily about money, district leaders stressed at the time, but about the resources that could be provided to students at larger schools that can pool more money, since schools receive money based on how many students they enroll.

Still, the closures were expected to cut some ongoing costs, although the effects may be delayed. Immediately after the closures, the district made large investments in the schools that received new students from closed buildings. The district is slowly starting to sell some of the properties.

During public comment sessions at board meetings, at least one community member has criticized the district’s decision to prioritize increasing teacher pay.

“Your reckless teacher pay increase almost certainly locks in a devastating future financial crisis,” Tom Coyne said at a public comment session in June. “Your projections show deficits for the next three years. Some of you said $118 million in projected deficits don’t make you anxious. If I were you, I’d be terrified.”

The last time Jeffco approved a mill levy override that increased its local tax revenue was 2018. A similar request in 2016 failed.

Based on last year’s figures, Jeffco collects approximately $2,074 per student in basic mill levy overrides approved by voters. Jeffco’s voter-approved mill levy override funding is lower than the approximate $3,101 per student Denver gets and the $2,919 per student Boulder’s district collects. Some districts such as Denver have reached the maximum amount they can raise their local revenue through basic mill levy overrides, but Jeffco has not.

That funding is in addition to the base funding, and districts can use it for a variety of ongoing operating expenses, including for staff salaries.

Without voter approval for these rate increases through mill levy overrides, homeowners may pay more in property taxes due to increased home values, but that doesn’t translate into more money for the local schools. Instead, those local taxes, even if they go up, are used toward the calculated base funding the district must reach, and that means the state can decrease its share of how much a district gets toward that base funding.

The Jeffco district is now considering a mill levy override question on the ballot in either 2026 or 2028.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Adams 14 district wants voters to approve new funding for schools

2024-10-11T23:02:44+00:00

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The Adams 14 school district will ask voters for the first time in 10 years to raise local taxes to build a new middle school and to raise teacher salaries.

Similar requests from the district failed in both 2013 and 2014.

In addition to building a new middle school, which was also the intent in 2014, this year’s $113.9 million bond request, if approved, would pay for security upgrades such as door sensors, HVAC system upgrades, new windows, roofs, and new furniture at many of the schools. The $10 million mill levy override, another version of a property tax increase, would raise salaries for teachers and classified staff.

Educators in the district say the repairs have been long overdue.

“You walk into our schools, the parents know it, the community knows it,” said Joe Salazar, an Adams 14 attorney. “You can see that we need some serious upgrades.”

The last time the district passed a bond was in 2008. It was used to build Adams City High School. The district last passed a mill levy override in the late 1990s, though an exact year wasn’t confirmed by the district.

This time, the district is working on plans to merge the district’s only two middle schools, Adams City Middle School and Kearney Middle School, which have both seen a decrease in enrollment. and no longer house sixth graders. (As of this year, sixth graders remain in elementary schools.) The plan is to move only seventh and eighth graders into the new building. If the tax measure fails, the schools will still merge, but district leaders haven’t decided in which building.

Jason Malmberg, the union president for teachers in Adams 14 and a teacher at Kearney Middle School, said he’s sad about the idea of losing the school. He’s been at Kearney for years, and said he even has a KMS tattoo. But he said educators understand the district’s position.

“Adams City Middle School and Kearney are in such dire need of replacement, it would be hard to find someone who’s not excited about getting a new building,” Malmberg said. “If this is going to be a thing that makes the district more financially competitive, then we understand.”

Building conditions directly have an impact on students, he said.

“If you’re a kid and you go to school and you see water damaged ceilings and smell something coming up from the sewer for the third or fourth time that year, it has an impact,” Malmberg said.

Buildings in Adams 14 need improvements. District officials are seeking a bond and mill levy increase in the November election.

Malmberg recalls a student who was considering switching to a school in the neighboring 27J school district, but was nervous about being able to fit in at a school she saw as much fancier than what she was used to in Adams 14.

Students have lowered expectations for themselves in conditions when they don’t see others investing in them, he said, even though “they deserve all the things.”

He said the facilities team and staff work hard to keep buildings safe and clean, but there’s only so much they can do with the old facilities.

Malmberg said teachers are excited about the safety upgrades that would also come, including no longer requiring students to walk outside the building to get from one class to another, as the existing middle school buildings are designed.

And, he said he hopes that the mill levy funding, if approved, would help make the district more competitive for teacher hiring and retention.

In last year’s negotiations, the district and the union agreed that if the mill levy is passed, teachers will get a minimum average raise of 3% once the district starts receiving the funds. Negotiations could make those raises higher.

Adams 14’s starting pay for teachers is now at $56,000, up from previous years but still lower than in some of the neighboring districts.

The measures would need to overcome past challenges

The district may face some challenges in getting the tax measures passed. The community is made up of many low-income voters who face a higher burden than other communities to raise funds.

For homeowners in Adams 14, the cost of the proposed bond and mill is approximately $6.52 a month per $100,000 of home value. For a home valued at $400,000, that would be about $26.08 per month.

Two nearby districts, Aurora and Westminster, are asking voters to approve tax measures that won’t require homeowners to pay higher property taxes.

The state has increased per-student funding — which affects the base amount all districts get — but additional voter-approved local taxes have created growing financial disparities between districts. Some have been able to pass local tax increases, while others haven’t. The difference can be thousands of dollars per student.

“Because of the way we fund education in Colorado, school districts have to do this to pay their teachers well,” Salazar said.

In the past, former Adams 14 district leaders have also said they avoided putting a question on the ballot because of the negative perception of the district in the community.

In a 2014 report, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights charged district leaders with discriminating against Spanish-speaking families, staff, and students. The district struggled for years to come into compliance with meeting the rights of those students. Federal officials only conditionally approved the district’s plan for English learners in 2020.

The district also has faced pressure from the state to improve after years of low student achievement. Only recently has the State Board of Education shown more trust in the district’s latest plan. Improvement on state ratings still remains elusive, however.

By one measure, the larger community’s trust in the district hasn’t improved.

Adams 14 has one of Colorado’s highest rates of students choosing to attend school in other districts. Of the 8,484 students who live in the Adams 14 boundary and attend public schools, 62% chose to attend district schools last school year. The other 37%, or 3,211 students, were enrolled in schools in other districts.

District leaders couldn’t say exactly how they’re working to get the word out to voters about the district’s financial needs for the ballot measures. Two leaders of the committee in charge of the work, Adams 14 Citizens for Excellent Schools, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Malmberg said that if the measures don’t pass, he doesn’t see another option but to try again the following year.

“There’s no amount of trimming or cutting back that is going to manifest the kind of money we need to replace these schools,” Malmberg said.

The district is estimating that it will take $77 million out of the $113 million bond request, to build the new school for seventh and eighth grade students. That’s nearly as much as this year’s total general fund budget for the district, which is just over $99 million.

“All kids deserve a safe and nurturing environment to learn and grow in,” Malmberg added. “I would think we would all want that for all the kids in the community.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

As COVID relief ends, Denver and Jeffco school districts to keep some aid-funded initiatives

2024-09-23T20:52:19+00:00

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As the deadline approaches to spend federal pandemic relief for schools, Colorado districts face a decision: Which programs and staff funded by that aid will they keep?

Colorado got nearly $1.2 billion in the third and final round of pandemic relief funding, known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief III, or ESSER III. The state divided most of that amount — about $1 billion — among its 178 school districts, giving more money to districts serving students with higher needs.

The federal government intended ESSER to help address the academic impact of lost learning time during the pandemic, and districts had to set aside a portion of the funds specifically for that purpose. But local officials had wide discretion to spend it on other things too.

Colorado’s two largest districts, 88,000-student Denver Public Schools and 76,000-student Jeffco Public Schools, got $209.6 million and $68.2 million, respectively. School districts must allocate their ESSER III money by Sept. 30 and spend it by January. However, states can ask the federal government for an extension to the spending deadline on behalf of districts and schools, and Colorado officials have indicated that they will.

Jeffco will continue spending on new curriculum, safety

Once ESSER runs out, Jeffco Public Schools will spend $9 million to continue some of the work previously funded by the federal COVID relief money. Jeffco officials said they’ve tracked outcomes and feel confident that they’re maintaining the most important things.

“Overall the things that were working, I think we found ways to continue to sustain them or sustain them in maybe a little different way,” said Dr. Kym LeBlanc-Esparza, deputy superintendent of Jeffco schools, who oversaw the spending of ESSER.

Among the items Jeffco will maintain spending on: security personnel for middle schools, some training for support positions including paraprofessionals, mental health telehealth appointments for students through Hazel Health, a continued rollout of new curriculum including for reading in secondary schools, and an increased daily rate for substitute teachers.

District leaders said the increased substitute teacher pay really helped. When the sub pay went up, so did the number of teacher vacancies that were filled by substitutes.

Denver to continue spending on summer programs, mental health

Denver Public Schools is spending $7.1 million to continue programming that’s been funded by ESSER. That includes some after-school and summer programming, as well as the salaries of about 40 staff who work in those programs. It also includes the salaries of 14 additional mental health workers and five additional armed safety patrol officers who respond to emergency calls.

“We are grateful for the money, and we did receive a lot of money,” said Katie Hechavarria, the Denver district’s executive director of finance. Losing the ESSER funding, she said, “will be felt across the district,” but added that officials have planned for it.

Deep staff cuts not expected in many districts

Nationwide, district officials have worried about the effect of the so-called “ESSER cliff” when the relief money runs out. One of the most-feared outcomes has been that schools would have to lay off teachers and other staff they’d hired with ESSER money.

Chalkbeat submitted open records requests to 15 school districts across Colorado and found that most are not eliminating positions as a result of ESSER’s expiration. Many districts have found ways to keep most, if not all, positions that had been funded by the aid.

Denver will lose the equivalent of about 16 full-time positions previously funded by ESSER, as well as another eight temporary positions that were expected to end anyway. The district had the equivalent of more than 11,700 full-time positions last year.

Jeffco will lose about 34 individuals whose jobs were funded by ESSER. People in most other positions that were cut were able to fill other roles, or were only working a handful of hours to supplement their existing district role, district leaders said.

High-dosage tutoring will end in Jeffco

One thing Jeffco will eliminate is high-dosage tutoring. The district used ESSER to pay for more than 100 part-time tutoring positions that will now be cut. But officials said many of those positions were filled by teachers who will continue to work for the district.

Although the district is cutting tutoring, leaders said research showed that the resources tutors were using may still deliver results even without the additional staff. Students who used the Lexia Core5 program made significant gains, according to district data.

Jeffco is also cutting back on its ESSER-funded expansion of summer programming due to staffing challenges. And it will no longer pay teachers and staff for training time outside of the school day as opposed to pulling them during the school day, an arrangement that LeBlanc-Esparza said the district would have liked to keep but couldn’t afford.

Denver will cut bonuses for hard-to-staff positions

Meanwhile, Denver will no longer offer ESSER-funded hiring bonuses for hard-to-staff positions, such as nurses. The district will also increase the fees some families pay for its before and after school program, called Discovery Link. ESSER had allowed the district to hold the fees steady.

There may be other cuts in Denver. The district doled out a significant chunk of its ESSER dollars directly to schools over the course of the three previous school years. Many schools initially spent it on teachers, paraprofessionals, and other staff.

But in an attempt to wean schools off the federal relief money before it expired, DPS reduced its direct-to-school payments over those three years.

By 2023-24, DPS’ 150 district-run schools were funding the equivalent of 63.5 full-time positions with ESSER money, an average of less than half a position per school, Hechavarria said.

She didn’t know how many school-based positions were cut this school year because of the expiration of federal aid. Those decisions are made by principals who don’t differentiate between ESSER-funded positions and other positions in their budgets, Hechavarria said.

“It’s difficult to attribute a change happening at a school just to stimulus dollars going away,” she said.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org .

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org .

Officials declare victory for school funding after tax deal struck in Colorado

2024-08-29T23:20:24+00:00

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Colorado looks set to avoid potentially drastic cuts to school funding, after state lawmakers struck a deal this week to try to get two property tax measures off the November ballot.

The deal struck in special session on Thursday would reduce property tax revenue by about $255 million in its first year, and cost public schools local tax revenue. But it would also require the state to backfill reduced funding for schools with about $88 million in state money in 2025 and $100 million in 2026.

The bipartisan compromise would also ensure Colorado can move ahead with plans to implement a new school funding formula next year that aims to provide more support for rural districts and groups of students like English learners and students from low-income backgrounds.

While the deal would cut some revenue that schools draw on, many lawmakers and education groups saw such an agreement as the lesser of two evils. That’s because if voters were to approve the two measures on the ballot later this year, the consequences for state tax revenue — and therefore for schools — could be monumental.

One of the two measures, Initiative 50, would cut property taxes by up to $1 billion by its third year of implementation. Meanwhile, Initiative 108 would cut property assessment rates and require the state to backfill lost revenue for county governments.

The new formula would also be jeopardized by such impacts on tax revenue, officials said.

The two groups behind the measures, however, said they would agree to take them off the November ballot if lawmakers struck their own deal to cut taxes first.

Many officials, including Democratic Gov. Jared Polis, cast this week’s special session as a way to protect school funding.

“Is this a move to play defense?” said House Speaker Julie McCluskie before one of the week’s votes on the deal. “You bet it is.”

When the special session ended with a deal Thursday, Polis declared victory.

“We are saving hardworking Coloradans money on property taxes, saving households money on utility bills, making our small businesses more competitive, and protecting funding for our schools,” he said in a statement.

Polis said he will sign the deal once the two tax measures, known as Initiative 50 and Initiative 108, are pulled off the November ballot by Advance Colorado and Colorado Concerns.

On Thursday, Advance Colorado said in a news release it will work with the governor to start the process of removing the ballot measures.

“For two years, we have said the solution taxpayers need is to cut taxes significantly and then put a cap in place so Colorado can avoid this crisis in the future,” Advance Colorado President Michael Fields said in a statement. “This bill gets that job done.”

Lawmakers already approved more than $1 billion in relief in this year’s regular session that ended in May. Some Democrats were frustrated about Polis calling the special session after providing that relief.

But school districts, colleges, and universities — as well as groups like the Colorado Education Association and the Colorado Children’s Campaign — lobbied in favor of the bill during the week. Municipal and county officials also urged lawmakers to reach an agreement.

What the property tax deal does for schools

The deal reduces residential property tax assessment rates for lodging in 2024 and then most other types of property in 2025. The deal also cuts property taxes collections to local governments by about $255 million in its first year.

The bill lowers assessment rates overall but keeps local assessment rates for schools higher than other assessment rates. The deal ensures that districts won’t face large drops in county funding.

Although schools are expected to lose local revenue from this deal, the state must backfill the bulk of the projected revenue losses.

In addition to hampering the revised school funding formula, the two ballot measures would force the state to revive the practice of borrowing money from schools to pay for other initiatives, officials said.

The new formula, the first major revamp to school funding since 1993, calls for the state to infuse $500 million into K-12, starting in the 2025-26 school year.

Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat, said she’s confident in the budget for K-12 in light of the agreement.

“I was intent on coming back and finding a compromise to avoid what I know was going to be pretty devastating impacts to education,” she said. “I was uncomfortable gambling with our children’s futures.”

Colorado Education Association President Kevin Vick said in a statement that the bill offers long-term relief and a stable source of funding for schools.

Higher education would also face serious cuts through the ballot measures.

Historically, tuition increases have been used to make up for reduced funding. But that strategy increases the burden on students and families, especially when Colorado families already face higher tuition compared to people in other states.

Leaders from the Community College of Aurora, for example, predicted that if voters were to approve the ballot measures, the school might have to increase tuition rates by over 50%.

Colorado education community hopes tax deal will end threat from ‘catastrophic’ ballot measures

2024-08-23T00:21:05+00:00

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Colorado lawmakers convening for a special session about property taxes next week have been sent a clear message by the governor and others: Protect funding for K-12 and higher education, or we won’t be happy.

The special session, the second called by Gov. Jared Polis in less than a year focused on property taxes, will try to head off two controversial ballot measures. Initiative 50 would cap annual statewide tax growth and Initiative 108 would cut property taxes by about $3 billion in 2025, with larger cuts in subsequent years, according to state fiscal studies.

If legislators agree to a compromise that’s on the table for the special session, a conservative group said it will remove the measures from the November ballot.

With so much progress made in the last year to boost K-12 funding and several years of increases to higher education budgets, there’s bipartisan concern that the two ballot measures would harm education funding.

If passed by voters, they would also almost certainly postpone the start of a new, long-awaited funding formula for K-12 schools enacted earlier this year.

The bulk of Colorado’s state and local services are funded through property taxes. So big reductions in property tax revenues could lead to cuts in many services, like education. The impact of the two ballot measures would be so significant that to many advocates, a special session looks like a safer bet to protect education funding — even if that means tax cuts — than putting the measures to voters.

The proposal lawmakers are expected to consider would cut taxes by $255 million next year.

“Throughout state government, including education, these two measures would be catastrophic,” said Riley Kitts, the vice president of government affairs for the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

Polis says special session must protect schools

The initiatives are part of an ongoing fight over property taxes following the repeal of the Gallagher Amendment, which limited the tax rate by maintaining a split between residential and commercial property taxes. Since its repeal, homeowners have faced mounting tax bills and lawmakers have tried to provide relief.

Initiative 50 proposes a constitutional 4% annual cap on total statewide property tax revenues. It would reduce tax revenue by $115 million in the 2025 tax year and up to about $1 billion by the third year.

Initiative 108 would reduce residential and non-residential property assessment rates and require the state to backfill lost revenue for county governments to cover these losses.

More than 50 advocacy groups called the initiatives “a real threat to all communities” in an Aug. 12 letter.

“These measures would lead to cuts in education and higher education funding, fire, EMS, libraries, and other important community services,” the letter says.

Polis called for the special session several days later, and identified K-12 and higher education are top priorities.

“We are focused on saving Coloradans money on property taxes, and in doing so, protecting school funding and higher education, preserving our economic competitiveness, and avoiding risky ballot measures,” Polis said in a news release. “The cost of inaction is too high. We refuse to gamble with our schools, our economy, our future.”

Lawmakers have voted to spend more on education

The compromise that legislators will consider during the special session would preserve education funding at current levels, Kitts said.

During this year’s regular legislative session, which concluded in May, lawmakers paid off the budget stabilization factor that led to the state withholding money from schools for 14 years to pay for other priorities. This year, the General Assembly eliminated that practice.

They also revamped the state’s school funding formula for the first time in 30 years — an effort that was over a decade in the making.

The new formula significantly increases funding to rural districts and those serving large numbers of students from low-income backgrounds and English learners. To fund the formula a reality, it calls for a funding increase of $500 million over the next several years, or about $83 million a year. The new formula will go into effect in the 2025-26 school year.

Lawmakers also increased higher education spending by $134.9 million, an increase of approximately 10%. That’s on top of several years of big increases for colleges and universities, and for students’ state financial aid.

That progress is jeopardized by the ballot initiatives, Kitts said.

“If these ballot measures pass, it’s almost like that whole legislative session never happened,” he said. “We won’t have a new funding formula, and we’re going to have to reinstate the budget stabilization factor. So we are very fearful of that.”

Education funding supporters hope for compromise

Not everyone agrees with that view.

Brenda Dickhoner, president and CEO of the conservative education group Ready Colorado, said she believes the state could backfill schools’ funding if the measures pass in November.

But she agrees that the measures would delay the new formula, which her organization supported.

“Our number one priority is to ensure that the new public school finance formula gets rolled out as planned,” Dickhoner said.

The new formula has a provision that will halt its implementation if the state doesn’t bring in sufficient tax revenue. That trigger is a safeguard in case of an economic downturn. However, Initiatives 50 and 108 would lower taxes to the point where the trigger would go into effect, she said.

Higher education officials are especially worried because college and university budgets have historically been easy targets for cuts. For example, last week, the Fort Lewis College Board of Trustees voted on a resolution to oppose the ballot measures.

During economic downturns, higher education is frequently one of the first areas that states cut because colleges and universities can make up the lost state money by charging more in tuition. But doing that could impact enrollment and students’ decisions about higher education.

“Such significant state budget cuts could lead to severe reductions in funding for essential services and higher education, reminiscent of the Great Recession’s impact,” the Fort Lewis resolution says.

Colorado Education Association President Kevin Vick said he’s hopeful for a compromise during the special session. He said the union will remind lawmakers of their responsibility to education.

Kitts said he’s also hopeful lawmakers reach a compromise, because the alternative to a compromise doesn’t look promising.

“Colorado has a long history of being fairly anti-tax and often votes in favor of reducing their taxes, even when it’s against their own self interest,” Kitts said. “And so that’s what ultimately scares me here.”

Disparities in local tax revenue for Colorado schools are growing, causing inequities and concern

2024-06-12T00:26:36+00:00

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As Colorado celebrates school funding increases meant to benefit some of the most disadvantaged districts in the state, one key issue remained unresolved this legislative session: the growing inequities created by local taxes.

Apart from state per-pupil funding, some school districts can raise several thousand additional dollars per student in voter-approved property taxes known as mill levy overrides, allowing them to boost teacher salaries and make safety improvements, for example. Other districts raise nothing extra. An attempt by state lawmakers to equalize that imbalance isn’t yet working as intended, in part because a state matching fund can’t make up for all the gaps.

Meanwhile, the imbalance is growing. In the metro area alone, the gap between how much additional revenue school districts are able to generate per student has increased by 52% in the last 10 years from $2,032 to $3,105. That’s despite a cap on the amount of money districts can raise based on a percentage of that district’s state funding.

At the bottom of the 15-district group now: Adams 14, a school district that has struggled to raise student performance. Local leaders have long pointed to the high needs students have in the low-income community, and the lack of resources schools can offer.

Adams 14 collects about $956 in additional mill levy override funds per student. On the opposite side of Denver, the Sheridan district collected more than $4,000 per student this past year, after a recent local tax measure passed.

“We know we are at a disadvantage in terms of keeping up,” said Karla Loría, Adams 14 superintendent. “We feel it.”

She said the district is struggling to keep salaries competitive with neighboring districts, which is affecting hiring and retention. The district has long struggled with staff retention. Teachers this semester staged rallies before and after school trying to push the district to offer better salaries for next year. Negotiations are ongoing, but the district is also considering trying to ask voters this November for a mill levy override to help raise more money.

The district hasn’t asked to raise local taxes in 10 years. Adams 14 voters last successfully approved a mill levy override more than 20 years ago.

Across the state, some of the inequities are even larger than in the metro area. For the 2023-24 school year, 13 Colorado districts collected more than $4,000 per student in voter-approved mill levy override funds including Aspen, Telluride, Clear Creek, and Sheridan. On the other end of the spectrum, 54 school districts never have had voters approve this type of tax, meaning they collect $0 on top of the baseline funding all districts get.

And that’s not considering other additional local funds such as bond requests that districts can ask for.

How does it work?

The amount of money districts can collect depends on a few factors. One of the largest factors is the assessed value in the community. In other words, how much property or mineral value exists in the community that would be taxed? This includes home values, but also commercial or industrial development, agricultural properties, or oil and gas. It also depends on the ability of the community to approve a ballot measure to tax themselves more.

But experts say that what that tax means to property owners varies widely.

“You’re asking vastly different questions trying to achieve the same results,” said Brett Ridgway, chief financial officer for the Lewis-Palmer school district just north of Colorado Springs.

To raise a significant amount of money for a district in a community with high assessed value, the community’s tax only has to increase slightly, so they’re likely to approve it. In communities with low assessed value, the district would have to pass a much higher tax rate just to get a small amount of money. That means the burden on homeowners feels heavier, and voters are less likely to approve it.

One way to look at the inequities is to consider the difference between assessed values in a community. Assessed values have increased in many communities, but the gaps between districts with high and low property wealth is also growing.

For the 2023-24 school year, 12 districts in Colorado had an assessed value of more than a million dollars per student, including Gilpin County where many casinos are located, Telluride, Aspen, and Garfield counties.

When looking at that assessed value per student in the metro area, Adams 12 and 27J, which covers much of Brighton, have the lowest property wealth. Adams 12′s net assessed value in 2023-24 is $4.2 billion, or about $124,633 per student. Tiny Englewood has the highest assessed value per student. Its total district assessed value is just $830 million but with few students it ends up being $389,915 per student. Denver’s net assessed value is the largest in total, at $25.1 billion, but divided per student is $301,958.

Adams 12 Superintendent Chris Gdowski wrote a letter earlier this year to the legislature, asking them to consider mill levy inequities in their school funding discussions.

His community, for example, was created as a residential suburban community, so there’s little else besides residential homes that get taxed.

His district calculated that for Adams 12 to raise enough revenue to match Boulder Valley, which has more expensive homes, and also more development, a homeowner would pay about $1,120 per year in taxes on a $500,000 home while a Boulder homeowner of a $500,000 house would pay $400 per year.

“Districts without comparable MLO revenue, including districts like Adams 14, 27J, and Adams 12, will continue to have disproportionate vacancies, greater class sizes, and fewer resources to serve these same at-risk populations in their communities,” Gdowski said in his letter to lawmakers.

He added that simply increasing per-pupil state funding “without addressing MLO inequities between districts in the metro area, will perpetuate the zip-code based funding inequities that have existed — and grown larger — through my tenure.”

In Adams 14, district leaders said they have made $7 million in cuts to central administration in an attempt to find more funding for the classrooms. But that has meant that support for schools has also decreased. Superintendent Loría said that the mental health department in the district is now down to one person.

“That adds hats to some people in the schools which makes it difficult to work in a district,” Loría said.

The district is currently doing a market analysis to evaluate if they should ask voters for a tax measure this year. What it would fund would depend on what the community wants to see, but Loría said she would like to propose more funding for mental health, security, and special education programming.

And she wants to be able to offer more competitive salaries for all staff positions, she said.

Another possible fix

The legislature tried two years ago to help the disadvantaged districts, but some say it’s not quite playing out as was expected.

Lawmakers created a program that would establish matching funds for districts, on a sliding scale. A group of financial officers from various school districts helped write a formula that considered the district’s assessed value and median home income as a way of determining how much in taxes a community reasonably should be expected to contribute to help its schools.

The state match was meant to help fill the gap between what communities can raise through mill levy overrides and what would make their extra funding more equitable with other districts.

It was also meant to provide an incentive to districts that have not asked voters to tax themselves to raise school funds, thinking that the amount they would get out of a tax measure would be too small to help the district’s budget anyway. To benefit from the program, a district has to have a mill levy override, either one approved in the past or one approved after the program was created.

But the match hasn’t yet helped any district pass a new tax measure. In part, districts are uncertain about the way the formula works, and whether the match from the state would change rapidly year to year. In one district, Widefield in Colorado Springs, the opening of an Amazon warehouse center changed the assessed value in the community from one year to the next, drastically lowering the calculation of how much the state would contribute.

Ridgway, who helped write the formula, said that it’s working just as it was designed, but that new realities in how the economies in Colorado are changing might require some tweaks. He thinks perhaps using three-year averages of assessed values might help prevent drastic changes and give districts time to adjust.

In other cases, the state match just still isn’t enough.

“The current formula has not resulted in consistent and predictable matching in its first two years of operation,” Gdowski wrote to lawmakers. “Some districts received sizable allocations in year one and are currently set to receive nothing, or almost nothing, in year 2 — and at the same time the proposed distributions for the current fiscal year call for more than 87 percent of the funds to be awarded to just four school districts in El Paso County.”

In 2022-23, the state gave $10 million to 27 districts through the program. More than half of the districts received less than $50,000 from the state.

For the 2023-24 school year, lawmakers set aside more money, $21.1 million, but only split it between 22 districts. In response to Gdowski’s concerns, the legislature also ran a second formula for the match program this month for the 2023-24 year, giving another $15.7 million to 40 districts.

The year-to-year variations make it hard, Gdowski said, to assure voters that if they pass a tax measure they will get a state match.

Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who was one of the sponsors of the bill that created the state match program, disagrees that the program isn’t working. She says the problem is that districts want more money from it.

“It’s a good idea. We got it off the ground, but we’re going to need to think more long term about how to fund it,” Zenzinger said. “I’m really excited about the possibility of strengthening it.”

The state rewrite of the school finance formula approved this session ultimately included language to create a working group to meet this fall to study possible changes to the state match program, and to analyze mill levy inequities “between neighboring districts that have differing mill levy overrides, levels of property tax bases, or demonstrated levels of local effort.”

Zenzinger said that the group may consider changes to the formula, perhaps blending the two that were used this year together, but she also wants the group to consider how the state might create a sustainable funding source for the program.

“Right now it’s up in the air,” she said.

If the program is successful in the long term, Zenzinger doesn’t expect all inequalities can disappear.

“It’s kind of the nature of our tax structure,” Zenzinger said. “Inevitably, more property wealthy districts are going to bring in more money.”

Rep. Jennifer Bacon, a Democrat from Denver and former school board member, said part of the problem is that the state’s base funding for schools isn’t enough.

Ideally, she said, passing mill levy overrides should help communities pay for extras that they feel are important to them, not pay for necessities like teacher salaries.

“Districts are relying on it more for baseline budgets,” Bacon said. “That’s just because of how we fund things and we don’t have enough money. The big challenge is this lack of funding.”

Districts say the funding matters

Some critics say that what matters more than increasing funding is how the money is spent. They say lower-funded districts should spend their money more efficiently.

Ridgway said that while there is some truth to the importance of efficiencies, it’s only true when the disparities are below 10%. He said that when some districts can raise up to 30% more than their base state funding, while others have no extra money, the inequalities will be apparent.

“We can’t out-efficient that,” Ridgway said. “It’s not a question of efficiency at that point.”

Loría in Adams 14, wants her community to consider that Adams 14 is already making some academic improvements that the state has taken notice of, despite the lack of resources.

“The last couple of years we have proven we can do better,” Loría said. “More resources will ensure we can get there faster.”

Adams 14′s attorney, Joe Salazar, a former state lawmaker himself, said that the legislature has been discussing this problem for too long, and is systematically not working for low-income communities.

“We don’t see any end in sight,” Salazar said.

Chris Fiedler, superintendent of the 27J school district, agrees.

“We’re never going to tax ourselves to equal,” Fiedler said.

Fiedler is retiring this summer after decades as superintendent. Ten years ago, 27J was the district collecting the fewest dollars in mill levy overrides: just $46 per student. His district put the question to voters, failing seven times before finally passing a mill levy override in fall of 2022 that now brings in $1,118 per student, which has pulled his district out of the bottom.

Since passing the mill levy override, 27J was able to raise starting teacher salaries and give employees a 16% raise. For this coming year, they just finished negotiations and will be able to give teachers another 8% raise in pay.

“Prior to the mill levy passing, we had years we were frozen,” Fiedler said. “One time we just did a Christmas bonus of $250.”

Fiedler said teacher retention has improved already. The mill levy funding in 27J is also helping to pay for armed security in all elementary schools, other safety improvements, and to expand career and technical programs at the district’s comprehensive high schools.

“It matters, it really matters,” Fiedler said. “I am extremely grateful to our community for saying yes.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

In search of funding for child care, 2 Colorado regions pursue special taxing districts

2024-05-23T21:24:06+00:00

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Colorado already has lots of special districts that levy taxes for things like fire protection, water sanitation, and libraries. But what about for early childhood programs?

Leaders of the tony Aspen ski resort advocated for a 2019 Colorado law that allows communities to band together to create special districts for that purpose since it can be hard to find child care in that area of western Colorado. Plus, the options available can be expensive for the resort’s employees.

But solving those problems requires regional cooperation since lots of workers live “downvalley” in places like Carbondale and Glenwood Springs, but work “upvalley” in Aspen, one county over, said Maggie Tiscornia, who heads the Confluence Early Childhood Education Coalition.

That’s why her group has led the charge to create one of the state’s first special districts to levy property or sales taxes for early childhood efforts. Another group is trying for a special district on the Front Range. Both will have to win approval from commissioners in each county included in their district’s proposed boundaries before they can ask voters to sign off.

Special taxing districts for children’s services exist in Florida and Missouri. They’ve been possible for five years in Colorado, but none exist yet. While cities and counties already had the ability to levy taxes for preschool or child care, special districts allow communities to take a regional approach to early childhood needs, which, depending on where families live and work, can quickly spill over the boundaries of a single jurisdiction.

Advocates say the special districts can make child care more accessible, affordable, and higher quality by subsidizing teacher training, boosting wages, and helping families cover tuition costs. They say such districts aren’t a cure-all for the underfunded early childhood sector, but can be a partial fix in some communities.

“The biggest thing we see in Colorado writ large is it’s hard to pass things statewide,” said Jason Callegari, senior program officer at the Buell Foundation, an early childhood funder based in Denver. “So, if this is a tool that can get folks to buy into a localized solution, that can be really helpful.” (Chalkbeat receives funding from the Buell Foundation.)

While Colorado did pass a statewide nicotine tax in 2020 to help fund free preschool for 4-year-olds, several other statewide ballot initiatives for education have failed, including in 2019, 2018, 2013, and 2011.

Callegari said the foundation recently created a toolkit and has grants available to help Colorado communities secure dedicated local funding for efforts focused on young children, including through special districts. Although special taxing districts for early childhood are now allowed in the state, there are reasons none have come to fruition yet, he said.

“Special taxing districts are not easy,” he said. “You need to have a lot of governance expertise to figure out how to cross the t’s and dot the i’s.”

Olivia Allen, vice president of strategy and advocacy at the Children’s Funding Project, said local tax levies for early childhood — whether in special districts or a single municipality — can help build trust among voters and momentum for broader public investments.

“These local measures ladder up to state-level support and successes,” she said.

Boulder-St. Vrain leaders seek child care funding again

The push to create a special district encompassing most of the Boulder Valley and St. Vrain Valley school districts grew out of a narrower effort in 2019 aimed at doing more for young children in Longmont, a city of 100,000 where the St. Vrain Valley district is based.

As more nonprofits and government representatives came to the table, leaders realized that focusing just on Longmont risked leaving out too many non-resident children and families who have school or work ties in the area, said Tim Waters, a former Longmont City Council member and a co-founder of the Early Childhood Alliance, the group spearheading the special district.

The group eventually broadened their focus to the two school districts, specifically the portions in Weld and Boulder counties. Leaders excluded a small portion of the St. Vrain Valley district in Larimer County, as well as pieces of the Boulder Valley district in Gilpin and Broomfield counties, to avoid having to win approval from five counties for the new district.

But even with just two counties in the mix, the plan was ambitious.

“We made the decision to go big or go home,” Waters said.

The alliance sought to raise about $60 million a year through a 5 mill property tax levy — the equivalent of $5 worth of tax per $1,000 of assessed value. The money would help child care providers raise teacher wages, expand childhood mental health services, provide more services for children with disabilities, and provide child care subsidies to families, especially for infant and toddler care.

Their bid failed after Boulder County commissioners rejected the plan in 2023, before voters could consider the proposal.

This time around, Waters said, “we’ll make a smaller ask with a more focused scope of work.”

He said the group’s plan for using special district funding will be similar to the first time, though they will seek a levy of less than 5 mills in 2025, He also said they’ll include a sunset date instead of asking to make the tax permanent from the outset.

Rural resort region seeks to bolster child care

A coalition of business, government and nonprofit leaders in the Roaring Fork and Colorado River valleys hopes to create a special district that would raise $10 million a year to help families find child care, provide sliding-scale child care subsidies, and help local providers improve quality.

The district would stretch 84 miles from Aspen to Parachute, and include Pitkin and Garfield counties, and part of Eagle County.

“Our region is very economically and socially interconnected,” said Tiscornia, of the Confluence Coalition. “It really doesn’t make a lot of sense to look at one subregion and provide supports there.”

Hannah Berman, senior manager of sustainability and philanthropy at Aspen Skiing Company, said resort leaders advocated for the 2019 special district law and belong to the coalition because child care — like housing — is a major financial and logistical struggle for many of their 4,000 employees, particularly women.

A recent coalition report found that there are enough licensed child care slots in the region for 47% of children under 5, but that staff shortages prevent some of those seats from being filled.

In addition, child care for one preschool child eats up 15% to 18% of the median family income in the region — more than twice the 7% “affordability threshold” set by the federal government.

Berman said, “We want to make sure our employees and community members have a genuine option to stay in the workforce if they want to, and that means we need to improve child care access and affordability.”

Berman said the biggest challenge in creating a special district in the two valleys isn’t getting prospective voters to understand why child care is a big issue — recent polling shows they do — but rather persuading them to raise taxes. Many already feel stretched financially, she said.

That feedback was part of what prompted the Confluence coalition to hold off on pursuing a special district ballot measure this year.

Tiscornia said the coalition still has some key questions to answer before going forward with a ballot measure in 2025: What kind of tax should it be? What size should it be? And how many years should it last?

As one of the first early childhood special districts under consideration, she said, “it requires a really careful approach.”

Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat, covering early childhood issues and early literacy. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado aprobó $24 millones para estudiantes inmigrantes. Aquí está lo que cada distrito escolar recibirá.

2024-05-09T23:18:10+00:00

Read in English.

Una oleada de dinero único será proporcionada a 85 distritos escolares de Colorado – casi la mitad de todos los distritos del estado – este mes para ayudar a compensar los gastos de un número sin precedentes de nuevos estudiantes entrando al medio del año, principalmente de Sudamérica.

Entre octubre y el 29 de febrero, los distritos escolares de Colorado han recibido a 8.085 nuevos estudiantes por todo el estado, según los datos presentados por los distritos al estado.

El mes pasado, legisladores de Colorado aprobaron el uso de $24 millones en financiación estatal para ayudar distritos escolares que están experimentando una afluencia de nuevos estudiantes inmigrantes este año. Colorado financia las escuelas según el recuento de inscripciones a partir de octubre. Cada año hay estudiantes que se van o se inscriben en escuelas después de octubre, la financiación del distrito no es ajustada.

Pero este año, líderes de los distritos, especialmente en distritos grandes como Denver y Aurora, dijeron que el número de nuevos estudiantes que estaban recibiendo después de octubre era más grande de lo normal de años anteriores.

Para ser elegibles para la financiación, los distritos tuvieron que presentar su solicitud, junto con un registro de su recuento de inscripciones, al Departamento de Educación de Colorado. El departamento usó una fórmula aprobada por los legisladores del estado para averiguar cuánto dinero recibirá cada distrito. Nueve distritos que solicitaron no fueron elegibles para recibir dinero.

Busca cuánto dinero le toco a tu distrito, cuánto cambio en total el número de inscripciones, y cuantos estudiantes recién llegados recibieron, todo en la siguiente tabla:

Los distritos recibieron dinero en dos maneras. La primera era que había un sistema escalonado que otorgaba determinadas cantidades de dinero a los distritos basándose en el número de recién llegados que habían inscrito entre octubre y el 29 de febrero. Después, los distritos podrían calificar para dinero adicional, por estudiante si esos recién llegados resultaron aumentos netos en la inscripción del distrito.

De los 85 distritos recibiendo dinero, 39 calificaron para recibir dólares por estudiante: $4,672.03 por cada estudiante, que es menos de lo que los distritos obtuvieron por los estudiantes matriculados en octubre.

En otros casos, los distritos recibieron muchos estudiantes nuevos pero debido a la disminución general de la matrícula, su número total de estudiantes para febrero era menos de lo que era en octubre.

El distrito escolar Adams 12, por ejemplo, inscribió a 374 recién llegados, pero debido a la disminución general de la inscripción, su inscripción total disminuyó en 58 estudiantes en comparación con octubre. Eso significa que Adams 12 calificaba para los $500,000 del sistema escalonado pero no recibió ninguna cantidad por estudiante además de eso.

Los distritos recibirán sus asignaciones de fondos este mes aunque para la mayoría servirá para reembolsar el dinero que ya gastaron en la contratación de personal adicional a principios de este año.

Los líderes de distritos escolares hablaron de tener que agregar nuevos salones en algunas escuelas, requiriendo más maestros y otro personal de apoyo.

El distrito escolar de Westminster está planeando ofrecer unos programas de verano para los estudiantes recién llegados. En el distrito escolar de Harrison en Colorado Springs, un “comité de recién llegados” está desarrollando un “conjunto de herramientas para que lo utilicen los maestros”.

“Aunque estos fondos sean de una sola vez, cada cantidad pequeña ayuda proporcionar apoyo, recursos, y instrucciones que necesitan nuestros nuevos estudiantes recién llegados”, dijo Rachel Laufer, superintendente adjunta de enseñanza y aprendizaje del distrito de Harrison, en un correo electrónico sobre la financiación.

Yesenia Robles es una reportera para Chalkbeat Colorado que cubre distritos escolares de kindergarten a 12º grado y la educación multilingüe. Comunícate con Yesenia por correo electrónico a yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

La traducción de este articulo se publico primero en La Ciudad, un boletín digital bilingüe de Colorado Community Media. Regístrate para recibirlo en coloradocommunitymedia.com/newsletters.

Colorado approved $24 million for migrant students. Here’s how much each school district will get.

2024-05-03T21:44:21+00:00

Leer en español.

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A surge of one-time money will reach 85 Colorado school districts — almost half of all districts in the state — this month to help offset costs of an unprecedented number of new students arriving midyear, mainly from South America.

Between October and Feb. 29, Colorado school districts received 8,085 newcomer students spread throughout the state, according to data submitted by the districts to the state.

Colorado lawmakers last month approved the use of $24 million in state funding to help school districts experiencing an influx of new migrant students this year. Colorado funds schools based on enrollment counts from October. Every year there are some students who leave or enroll in schools after October, and the district’s funding doesn’t get adjusted.

But this school year, district leaders, especially in large districts such as Denver and Aurora, said the number of new students they were receiving after October was much larger than in typical years.

To be eligible for the money, districts had to submit their request, along with a record of their enrollment counts, to the Colorado Department of Education. The department used a formula approved by state lawmakers to figure out how much each district will receive. Nine districts that applied were not eligible for any of the money.

Search for your district’s allocation, net enrollment change, and total new arrivals in the following table:

Districts got money in two ways. First, there was a tiered system that gave certain set amounts of money to districts based on how many new arrivals they’ve enrolled between October and Feb. 29. Then, districts could also qualify for additional money, on a per student basis — if those new arrivals resulted in net increases in district enrollment.

Of the 85 districts getting money, 39 qualified for per-student dollars: $4,672.03 for each student, which is less than districts got for students enrolled in October.

In other cases, districts received many new arrivals, but because of overall declining enrollment, their total student count by February was still lower than it was in October.

The Adams 12 school district, for example, enrolled 374 new arrivals, but because of overall enrollment declines, their total enrollment is down 58 students compared to October. That meant Adams 12 qualified for $550,000 from the tiered system, but did not receive any per-student amount in addition to that.

Districts will receive their funding allocations this month, though for most, it will serve to reimburse them for money they’ve already spent on hiring extra staff earlier this year.

School district leaders talked about having to add new classrooms in some schools, requiring more teachers and other support staff.

The Westminster school district is planning to offer some summer programming for newly arrived students. In the Harrison school district in Colorado Springs, a “newcomer committee” is developing a “toolkit for teachers to use.”

“Even though they are just one-time funds, every little bit helps us provide our newcomer students with the support, resources, and instruction they need,” Rachel Laufer, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning for the Harrison district, said in an email about the funding.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado lawmakers pitch rewrite of unpopular school funding formula that’s older than Nikola Jokic

2024-04-12T02:44:46+00:00

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Colorado would significantly boost funding to rural districts and to those serving large numbers of students in poverty and English learners under a school funding overhaul unveiled Thursday.

Supporters of House Bill 1448 hope it sends more money to the students who need it most — and that the extra money will eventually improve student achievement.

“Our job is to make sure that we are delivering state funding in a way that ensures the kids with the greatest needs are getting the greatest help,” said Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, a bill sponsor, during a Thursday news conference.

The effort comes after years of debate about the best way to rewrite a 30-year-old school funding formula. Education advocates and school leaders widely agreed the formula was outdated and unfair. But changing it was politically challenging because no district wanted to get less so that others could get more.

Supporters hope this bill will overcome those hurdles by using $500 million in new money to phase in the formula over six years — or about $83 million a year. Colorado is finally funding education according to state constitutional requirements after years of underpayment. McCluskie said increases in local property tax revenue and declining enrollment have relieved pressure on the state budget, and she feels confident the state can pay for the changes over time.

The new funds means no district will get less than what it does under the current formula.

The bill has the backing of a diverse coalition of superintendents and is sponsored by leadership from both parties.

In addition to McCluskie, a Democrat, lawmakers backing the bill include Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican and longtime player in school finance debates; Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, vice chair of the Joint Budget Committee; and Assistant Majority Leader Jennifer Bacon, who previously served on the Denver school board.

Still, the bill faces a tight timeline for approval — the session ends May 8 — and questions about sustainability.

Bret Miles, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, which represents superintendents across the state, said his membership will dissect the bill, ask questions, and raise any concerns. CASE is a powerful interest group at the Capitol and has put the brakes on past efforts to rewrite the formula.

“There is a possibility, as a really diverse group of districts statewide, that we don’t come together with one position on all of this,” Miles said “This is that big and that complex.”

New formula aims to focus on student needs

The bill closely follows a framework recommended by a 17-member task force in February. The group wanted to provide more for districts serving students with greater needs, districts with low property wealth, and districts that are small or rural.

Currently, Colorado sets a base per-pupil funding amount. Then it uses factors such as district size, cost of living, and the number of students living in poverty as weights to determine actual per-pupil funding for each district.

Colorado also gives districts additional money on top of the formula for students with disabilities, those learning English, and gifted and talented students. But increases in funding for these categories of students hasn’t kept pace with increases in students needing extra services.

Traditionally, cost of living has accounted for a disproportionate share of school funding — $1.3 billion this school year, compared with just $482 million for students living in poverty. That’s out of roughly $9 billion in total state education funding.

The new formula aims to put more money toward student needs and less toward cost of living. And in allocating per-student funding, it creates weighted factors not just for students living in poverty, but also for English learners and students with disabilities.

Districts would get 25% more for each student with one of those characteristics. If a student meets two or three criteria, districts would get more money for each criteria.

Under the bill, smaller and rural districts would also get extra funding based on their location and size.

Under the proposed “locale factor,” districts classified as remote would get the most extra funding, up to 25% more based on their location. Suburban and city districts would not get any extra money under the locale factor. The “size factor” would be based on a district’s enrollment. Only districts with fewer than 6,500 students would get additional money — about 85% of Colorado’s school districts.

Districts with a higher cost of living, as determined by a state formula, would continue to get additional funding like they have in the current formula. The proposal would cap how much districts could get under the cost of living factor to leave more money for student factors. The cap in the bill is higher than recommended by the task force, potentially reducing opposition from more affluent districts.

Colorado’s public school finance bill — a different bill than the proposed overhaul — calls for per-pupil funding to increase to $11,450 in the 2024-25 school year. In 2023-24, per-pupil funding is $10,614.

A legislative analysis of how the proposal would impact Colorado districts in the 2025-26 school year found that Denver Public Schools would get $165 more per pupil than what it’s projected to get under the current formula, while its suburban neighbor Jeffco Public Schools would get $146 more.

Adams 14, which serves a high-poverty community with many English learners, would get an additional $463 per student. High-poverty rural districts such as Rocky Ford and Center would see similar increases. Douglas County, an affluent suburban district, would see $85 more per student.

“At the end of the day, if we ask the question, ‘Does this help or does this harm student achievement?’ I think we’ll come up with the right answer,” said Lundeen, the Senate’s minority leader. “And I think this formula is on the right pathway to helping student achievement.”

Funding bill gets early support, but questions remain

Behind the scenes, McCluskie received support this week for the proposal from several superintendents, including Greeley School District 6 Superintendent Deirdre Pilch, who was in attendance of the Thursday news conference announcing the bill.

In a Tuesday letter, the group of 36 superintendents told McCluskie that the rewrite shouldn’t be delayed and urged lawmakers to take action this year — despite several ongoing studies related to school funding.

The superintendents who signed that letter include those for Denver Public Schools, Mapleton Public Schools, and Colorado Springs School District D11. It also included numerous rural district leaders such as those in Alamosa, Wiggins, and Summit. None of the schools would stand to lose money over time within the recommendations.

“We must not allow more generations of students to pass through our schools without addressing the glaring inequities in this outdated formula,” the superintendents said in the letter.

Pilch said the money would greatly benefit the Greeley district because it educates many students from low-income backgrounds and those who are learning English. The extra money allocated through the new formula would allow Greeley and rural districts to offer extended learning, health services, family services, food pantries, laundry facilities, and parenting education classes that help adults learn English and support their kids, she said.

“We’re long overdue for a change in school finance,” she said. “We have an opportunity because of the courage of our state legislature.”

Members of the task force that released recommendations in February also praised the effort.

“I would hope that we can come to agreement that this is an important investment to be making for kids,” said Brenda Dickhoner, CEO of conservative education advocacy group Ready Colorado.

Riley Kitts, Democrats for Education Reform state director, said Colorado needs a formula “that is rooted in modern data and rooted in modern policy.”

Still, widespread support for the measure isn’t guaranteed. Miles, of the school executives association, said he expects many other members will want to know specifics of the bill and how they affect their students.

Lawmakers should evaluate the numbers closely to understand if the proposal provides money for districts with more students with higher needs like they want, said Tracie Rainey, Colorado School Finance Project executive director.

And she wants to see how the state will fund the increase after underfunding schools for years. To increase school funding for next year and get rid of an annual withholding known as the budget stabilization factor, lawmakers have had to dip into education reserves.

“I think that the question now is: Do the numbers play out to represent the policy objectives that they have outlined in this bill?” Rainey said.

Chalkbeat Colorado Bureau Chief Melanie Asmar and National Editor Erica Meltzer contributed.

Colorado budget would boost funding for higher education, end maneuver that shortchanged schools

2024-03-27T00:50:03+00:00

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Next year’s $40.6 billion Colorado state budget proposal unveiled on Tuesday aims to provide a big boost to K-12 schools and colleges and universities across the state.

K-12 funding would increase nearly 7% to about $9.7 billion next year. Average per pupil spending would increase by about 7%, or $780, to $11,450 next year.

Higher education funding would get an even bigger increase, 10%. But the total amount of state money going to colleges and universities — about $1.6 billion next year under the proposal — is far less than the funding allocated to K-12 schools.

For the first time since 2009, the budget proposes to “fully fund” K-12 schools by eliminating a maneuver that withheld education funds to pay for other priorities. The end of what’s called the budget stabilization factor marks a turning point for the state and schools.

The budget proposal was crafted by the powerful six-member Joint Budget Committee, using recommendations issued by Gov. Jared Polis in November as a starting point. The budget committee once again prioritized education in a budget that also features increases to Medicaid reimbursements and more money for state workers.

The proposal’s introduction kicks off lengthy debate in the House and Senate over amendments to the budget. Budget committee members typically reject most of those amendments from fellow lawmakers before sending it back to them for final approval.

Joint Budget Committee members have faced challenges wrangling this year’s budget due to an unexpected $170 million shortfall, and last week held marathon sessions to pare down some priorities.

Although the budget writers made cuts and used one-time revenue to fill holes, they were able to preserve K-12 spending and provide far more for higher education funding than what was called for in Polis’ November budget proposal.

K-12 education gets full funding

Colorado lawmakers are required to continually adjust funding for schools based on the rate of inflation plus growth in the state’s student population. But for years the state has withheld money that should have gone to schools, through the budget stabilization factor — over $10 billion since 2009.

Lawmakers have said they do not want to keep pulling money away from schools. They hope to meet their obligation from now on. But even without withholding money from schools, the state’s education funding for next year would fund schools at 1989 levels, adjusted for inflation.

Still, many school funding advocates see this year’s proposal as a step in the right direction for the state, even as they push for more funding in future years.

The budget also provides enough money for the state’s Healthy School Meals for All Program, a new program that provides free school meals for all students but is facing a funding shortfall, because more kids than expected are taking part. The state would spend $56.1 million to ensure the state doesn’t have to cut back the program.

Lawmakers will cover $15.1 million of the program cost next year through general fund revenue. The rest will come from tax money dedicated to the program.

Colorado would also fully fund state-authorized charter schools at a level similar to other schools, bringing total spending to $49.2 million. Unlike district-authorized charter schools, state-authorized charter schools are not required to get a cut of locally raised tax money.

Along with the budget, committee members also will file a separate bill that will provide $24 million this year for newly arrived immigrant students. Colorado schools are grappling with an influx of newcomers, and the bill will call for providing more money for districts serving students who enrolled after the Oct. 1 funding cutoff.

Meanwhile, the separate school finance act, which outlines education spending and was filed on Friday, adds a new formula for funding rural schools. In previous years, lawmakers have used one-time allocations to direct more money to rural districts.

The school finance act and budget are the only two pieces of legislation lawmakers must pass before they adjourn in May.

Next year, a new permanent recurring factor would add $32.7 million next year to total education funding to be distributed based on student enrollment within a rural district, defined as a district with fewer than 6,500 students.

However, the school finance act doesn’t make bigger changes to the school finance formula. Advocates have called for lawmakers to overhaul the state’s school funding formula. Earlier this year, they received recommendations that call for almost half a billion dollars annually to be pumped into a formula overhaul.

The recommendations call for phasing in the formula changes, but it’s a large sum for the state next year and in subsequent years, especially when lawmakers have proposed dipping into reserves next year to pay for K-12 education increases. So far, no bill has been filed calling for changes to the state’s education funding formula.

The school finance act would also hold off on changing how the state calculates which students are considered “at risk,” meaning students living in poverty and facing other challenges outside of school. Districts receive more money to educate at-risk students.

The state was considering rolling out the new formula this fall to use socioeconomic factors, including eligibility for Medicaid, food stamps, and other government assistance, along with data from the U.S. Census about community poverty, to calculate how many of a district’s students are at risk.

Instead, the school finance bill would push using the new calculation into the 2025-26 budget year.

Lawmakers make big investment in colleges and universities

Joint Budget Committee members held off for weeks on making any decision on higher education budgets to see if they could increase funding well beyond Polis’ $48.2 million recommendation. The proposal nearly triples that amount.

Lawmakers plan to set aside $139.4 million more next year for college and university operations and student financial aid: $114.3 million more for operations, and $25.1 million for student financial aid.

The state would also spend $1.5 million in financial aid for youth experiencing homelessness.

Under the proposal, colleges and universities would be allowed to raise tuition by up to 3% for in-state undergraduate students. Institutions would be able to increase nonresident undergraduate student tuition by no more than 4%.

In a December letter, Colorado public college and university leaders said they would need $161.4 million more next year to meet inflation and wage increases. This is the third year colleges and universities have banded together to ask for more money beyond Polis’ budget proposal.

Even with the extra funding next year, concerns remain about the rising tuition burdens on students, especially because Colorado students pay more on average than students at peer universities in other states. And Colorado also spends less on average for higher education than other states.

Inside a Colorado bill to provide extra funding to school districts serving migrant students

2024-03-16T00:37:32+00:00

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All Colorado school districts that have enrolled any migrant students since the Oct. 1 school funding cutoff date would get extra money — between $15,000 and $750,000 per district — under a draft bill approved unanimously on Friday by the powerful Joint Budget Committee.

But districts where the new arrivals have caused a net increase in students — meaning the district has more students now than on Oct. 1 — would get the most extra money. Those districts could get as much as an additional $4,500 for every newly arrived student.

The bill allocates $24 million to be distributed by May 31 to districts that have enrolled what it calls “new arrival students,” or students who moved to the United States less than a year ago, are not proficient in English, and are attending a U.S. school for the first time.

The city of Denver alone has served more than 39,000 new arrivals from Venezuela and other South American countries since it began keeping track more than a year ago, including families with children who have enrolled in public schools.

The details of how the $24 million would be doled out are somewhat complicated. First, there is a tiered system of lump sum payments to school districts based on the number of new arrival students they’ve enrolled since the October count. Districts would get:

$15,000 if they’ve enrolled between one and five new arrival students
$30,000 if they’ve enrolled between six and 10 new arrival students
$75,000 if they’ve enrolled between 11 and 30 new arrival students
$125,000 if they’ve enrolled between 31 and 50 new arrival students
$200,000 if they’ve enrolled between 51 and 100 new arrival students
$400,000 if they’ve enrolled between 101 and 200 new arrival students
$550,000 if they’ve enrolled between 201 and 500 new arrival students
$750,000 if they’ve enrolled 500 or more new arrival students

On top of that, districts with a net increase in enrollment would get $4,500 per student. Here’s where it gets complicated: Districts with a net increase would either get $4,500 for each migrant student they’ve enrolled or $4,500 per student based on the net increase, whichever is lesser.

If the $24 million isn’t enough to cover the costs, the bill says state officials can reduce the $4,500 per student to a lower dollar amount. If calculations show there will be leftover money, state officials could increase the $4,500 to a higher dollar amount.

State Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who sits on the budget committee, said in a text message that she’s happy that the bill could provide relief for districts statewide that are dealing with a “very out of the ordinary influx of new to country students arriving.”

Lawmakers have been working on the bill for over a month, debating various ways to dole out the $24 million. Sirota said the tiered funding proposal acknowledges districts incur fixed costs to educate any and all newly arrived students.

Friday’s vote by the budget committee finalized the language of the bill, but it has yet to be filed for consideration by the full Colorado General Assembly.

“I know my colleagues, our school districts, and our educators are going to be very excited to shepherd this bill across the finish line in the coming weeks,” Sirota said.

The funding is less than what school districts get for each student enrolled on Oct. 1: $10,614 on average. However, budget committee members wanted to earmark the $24 million to provide some relief for districts struggling with the extraordinary influx — money the districts would never get otherwise. (Students who stay enrolled next year will be factored into the school funding formula, and school districts will get money for those students.)

“This sudden influx has strained existing school infrastructure and staffing, led to overcrowded classrooms, stretched resources, and increased complexity to the student learning environment,” the bill says.

The bill also acknowledges that newly arrived students may need extra services, including English language development classes, mental health support, and more. Some may have been out of school for long stretches of time and need help catching up academically.

“New arrival students face unique challenges, including language barriers, cultural adjustments, and various academic backgrounds,” the bill says. “These unique challenges require specialized resources and support services.”

How much funding districts might get under the bill

Denver Public Schools and Aurora Public Schools have enrolled the most migrant students since the October count, according to data obtained through open records requests.

Denver has enrolled an additional 2,340 newcomer students, and Aurora has enrolled an additional 1,366 migrant students. Denver’s numbers were as of March 4, while Aurora’s were as of Feb. 29. The bill uses Feb. 29 as the date to calculate the difference between October count enrollment and how many students districts are serving now.

Accounting for students who left the districts between the October count and those dates, Denver had a net increase of 1,025 students, while Aurora had a net increase of 727 students.

Under the legislation, Denver Public Schools would get a lump sum of $750,000 for the 2,340 newcomers it has enrolled. The district would also get $4.6 million for the 1,025 net increase based on the $4,500 per student formula.

In Aurora’s case, the district would also get $750,000. And the district would get about $3.3 million for its total increase of students since the October count.

Most other districts that have enrolled more than 100 migrant students since the October count had either a much smaller net increase or a net decrease.

For instance, as of Feb. 29, the suburban Cherry Creek School District had enrolled an additional 532 newly arrived students since the October count. But the district has had a net decrease of 41 kindergarten through 12th grade students since Oct. 1.

Greeley-Evans School District 6 had enrolled 488 more migrant students, but only had a net increase of eight K-12 students. Adams 12 Five Star Schools had enrolled 389 additional students, but its school population only grew by 42 students.

And Jeffco Public Schools and Mapleton Public Schools had net decreases, despite enrolling 382 and 140 more new arrivals, respectively.

The student influx creates financial challenges for schools across the state, Brett Johnson, chief financial officer for Aurora Public Schools, said in an interview before the bill text was approved.

“There’s a real and specific impact of these 1,200 kids who have enrolled in our schools in terms of hiring new staff, repurposing classrooms for those schools,” Johnson said. “And those are real costs that are being incurred in real time.”

The challenges remain even in districts that have net decreases in overall enrollment.

A Cherry Creek spokesperson said the district has hired six staff members since January to support the new arrivals. Three of those hires are in newcomer classes and three are cultural liaisons who provide interpretation and other support to families who do not speak English.

Correction: This story has been corrected to update the per pupil figure districts get from the state.

Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

With more Colorado students eating free meals at school, state may cut back the program

2024-03-06T00:22:37+00:00

Leer en español.

In the first year that Colorado is paying districts to give students free meals at school, more kids are eating than expected.

That has left the program $56.1 million short this year. And lawmakers are working on how to close the funding gap.

Colorado voters in 2022 supported creating limits on tax deductions for the state’s highest earners as a way to fund free school meals for all students. Advocates at the time said that there were families in Colorado who, due to the state’s high cost of living, were struggling financially even though they didn’t qualify for subsidized meals under federal poverty guidelines.

In calculating the cost of the program, analysts expected that about 25% more children would eat a school meal, including students who would have qualified for free meals already and those who wouldn’t.

Instead, schools this year have seen a more than 35% increase in breakfast participation, and a more than 31% increase for lunch compared with last year.

The higher-than-expected participation — and program cost — is due largely to students who previously had to pay for a school meal. In most cases, the federal government doesn’t reimburse the districts for any part of those children’s meals, leaving the state to cover those costs alone.

In the Cherry Creek School District, district leaders said they are serving about 32,262 meals a day on average, up from 23,317 a day last year — a 38% increase.

The state legislature’s Joint Budget Committee this week agreed to fill the $56.1 million gap this year. About $31.5 million can be covered with additional revenue that has come in from the new tax provision, but the rest will likely need to come from the state’s general fund.

The committee is also providing $100,000 this year, and $150,000 next year, for the Colorado Department of Education to hire a consultant to help come up with solutions that might keep the program on budget next school year. That effort could involve figuring out how to maximize how much money districts get from the federal government.

But lawmakers said the state will consider all options. That includes cutting the program, changing the eligibility rules for free meals, or finding new ways to pay for it, such as pulling money from the education budget.

Committee lawmakers said that changing the eligibility rules would be a last resort.

“There are a lot of families that technically don’t qualify for free or reduced lunch, but man is it a huge help to them making rent,” said Sen. Jeff Bridges, a Democrat from Greenwood Village. “I would be really uncomfortable with anything that puts a means test back into this program.”

Bridges also said a goal of the program was to remove the stigma of eating free school meals by making them available to everyone, not just to students from low-income families.

Advocacy groups are also working on possible solutions. Anya Rose, director of public policy for Hunger Free Colorado, said the group is considering how to make the program more sustainable, including the possibility of a new ballot measure.

Without any changes to the meal program, state analysts predict Colorado will come up short by $27.8 million next year.

In addition to the universal free school meals, voters approved three grant programs that were supposed to be rolled out in the coming school years. The grants were meant to help districts with things like buying Colorado-grown food for meals, providing stipends for kitchen employees, and paying for training or equipment.

For now, those grant programs will be on hold.

Lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee debated this week over whether they had a responsibility to keep the voter-approved program going, regardless of the additional cost to the state.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican, said that cost calculations have changed and the state has to deal with that.

“All of these warnings were given to us before, and we ignored them,” she said.

Before the plan was put to voters, lawmakers defeated a plan to offer free school meals to all, in part because of concerns about the cost.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Teacher pay: Adams 12 may give raises for mentoring rather than graduate degrees

2024-02-29T01:22:05+00:00

Teachers in at least two Adams 12 schools could earn higher pay in a pilot program – through district-provided training and taking on new school responsibilities – instead of by completing graduate credits, the more traditional route.

Removing pay incentives for college credits is rare, but not unheard of. About 90% of districts pay teachers more for earning graduate degrees, according to one survey of large districts.

“You don’t have to go out and spend $10,000 on a graduate degree,” said Dave Lockley, president of the teachers union in Adams 12. “We believe in continuing development. We don’t know that graduate credits are the best way.”

The pilot, designed by a team of teachers, union leaders, and district leaders, would likely take place at Thornton Elementary School and Thornton Middle School, two schools that have struggled. One goal of the pilot would be to incentivize more teachers to work in and stay at the low-performing schools with high percentages of high-risk students. The pilot also incentivizes teachers to collaborate to see if it helps with raising student achievement.

The team that designed the salary pilot had considered it for years. They moved forward with plans this year after the district committed $4.5 million to try it out. If approved, it is expected to start this fall and last three to four years, but the final agreement could change those details.

As teachers have been informed, there has been some pushback.

Lockley and district leaders said teachers’ main concerns are about what new responsibilities the higher pay requires, whether that money could do more good for more schools in another way, and whether the changes devalue graduate degrees some teachers already earned.

Union and district leaders are discussing the feedback to possibly adjust the plan or decide whether to move forward with it. If they agree in negotiations to the pilot in the next couple of weeks, the school board and the full union membership will have to vote to approve it.

Myla Shepherd, chief human resources officer for Adams 12, said the team that designed the pilot recommended Thornton Elementary and Middle schools for the pilot after the district ranked all schools using five criteria the subcommittee chose, including a three-year teacher turnover average, mobility of students, and how many students qualify for subsidized lunches.

Thornton Elementary has a three-year teacher turnover rate of 38.8%. At Thornton Middle School, that rate is 33.2%. Both schools have more than 40% of their students identified as English learners, and more than 83% qualify for subsidized meals.

But, Shepherd said, the district is open to running the pilot with more schools if possible.

None of the teachers at the pilot schools would see a decrease in their salary. Most will see a raise.

The district estimates the program will cost about $500,000 to $600,000 per school, at the start, Shepherd said, because of those salary increases, and because raises might be more accessible tied to professional development instead of college credit.

“Over time that would decrease as people earn more and turn over less,” Shepherd said the district estimates.

Ultimately, part of the goal is for schools to build a staff that’s a mix of new teachers, intermediate career teachers, and some veterans collaborating and helping each other.

“That’s when a school is at its best,” Lockley said.

Salary raises will also be flattened, so that teachers can reach the maximum earlier in their careers, even though the maximum would be a lower salary than the current schedule.

But Lockley said that under Adams 12′s current salary plan, only one teacher in the district is currently at the maximum, and for most teachers, it’s unattainable. Allowing more teachers to reach a maximum salary earlier can increase their lifetime earnings, even if that maximum is smaller, he said.

Typically, Lockley said, it is white men who are more likely to climb the salary ladder in traditional schedules, because they’re more likely to have money and time to earn higher degrees.

“It just always seemed baffling to me that we force teachers to go into debt in order to see a decent pay raise,” Lockley said. “Some of our teachers can’t afford the time or the money to go get a master’s degree. My hope would be that the things we learned from this pilot, we could use to help fix these long-term inequities.”

Researchers say studies have shown that many master’s degrees earned by teachers don’t lead to better student outcomes. However, there are cases where they do, such as a math teacher in a middle or high school, who earns a master’s degree in math, or special education teachers with specialized degrees for their field.

Linda Darling-Hammond, president of the Learning Policy Institute and a Stanford University professor, said that there are downfalls with district-provided training, too. They must be well-designed and closely tied to the work teachers do.

“And you can end up with the same inequities if they have to find their own time,” she said.

But the idea of incentivizing a system where veteran teachers would mentor and work with newer teachers can be promising, she said.

“There’s a lot to be said positively about the idea of having veteran teachers mentor younger educators,” Darling-Hammond said. “That does increase retention and effectiveness for the beginner teachers if you do it right.”

Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said that districts typically aren’t using money strategically when they pay more for graduate degrees that usually aren’t tied to better student outcomes.

“We need to pay teachers more for working where they’re most needed,” Peske said.

One measure that wasn’t considered by the group to choose the pilot schools, was a school’s state performance rating. Still, one of the two schools recommended, Thornton Middle School, is one of six in the district with a low rating that landed on the state’s watchlist for persistently low student test scores and other achievement deficits.

Ideally, Lockley said, he’d like to see a school improve performance in ways that show in better state ratings.

The subcommittee is still considering how to measure success, depending on the pilot’s length. Some version of student success, and teacher retention will be a part of it, Shepherd said.

“We’re trying something different to really honor and recognize the work of educators,” Shepherd said. “It will allow for attracting and retaining people in those challenging environments. And improved student achievement.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

An existing program for migrant students can’t help schools with the current influx of new students. Here’s why.

2024-02-22T18:59:22+00:00

Some of Colorado’s most diverse school districts, including Aurora and Greeley, are used to waves of immigration bringing in new students in the middle of the year.

Recently, families from Burma have moved into Greeley, and Aurora officials recall hundreds of new students from Afghanistan after U.S. troops pulled out.

But this year, the midyear wave is even bigger, with most students arriving from Venezuela and other South American countries. And it is overwhelming some district systems.

“We’re running at 300% our normal typical average for the school year,” said Brett Johnson, chief financial officer for Aurora Public Schools, referring to the number of midyear enrollments, which are up from the typical 500 to 800 in a year.

Schools need everything from new desks and more classroom space, to more teachers, bilingual staff, and specialized teachers who can administer screening tests to determine students’ levels of English proficiency and help them learn English.

But many of the new students from South America arrived after the Oct. 1 cutoff that determines how much per-student state funding each district will get. And although government officials refer to this new group of immigrants as “migrants,” the students do not qualify for money from the federal Migrant Education Program.

What does the Migrant Education Program do?

The Migrant Education Program began in 1966 and was designed to support the children of farmworker families. To qualify for the program, students must have parents who work in agriculture, or work in the field themselves, usually in temporary or seasonal positions, and must have moved between school districts within the last three years.

Some of the children might belong to families who travel around the country following the seasonal availability of farm work. They aren’t necessarily new to the country, and many already are fluent in English. Immigration status doesn’t matter, just as it doesn’t for the students who arrived this semester. By law, all children can access free public education.

In Colorado, there were about 4,500 agricultural migrant children aged 1 through 21 this year — fewer than the thousands of new students from South America. The $7.5 million federal allocation for the state helps younger children succeed in school and focuses on keeping teens and young adults up to age 22 in school instead of dropping out to work full time.

Advocates from the program travel to farms or worksites to enroll children in the program and convince older students up to age 22 to stay in school. The program works with families, visiting their homes, supporting their mental health, and figuring out what other barriers might exist for the students to learn. The funding also pays for school supplies, tutoring, and summer programming.

“A lot of our families have needs that are pretty basic, if we just try to push education on them they’re not ready a lot of times,” said Tomás Mejia, Colorado’s director for the Migrant Education Program. “If we help them be well enough, help the parents and adults be well enough to help the kids, that can really help a lot more.”

The new South American students also need the same types of support. For both groups of students, educators say there’s a need to build trust and provide help that goes beyond the classroom.

The Greeley school district usually enrolls the largest number of agricultural migrant students in the state, and Greeley also is seeing a wave of non-agricultural migrant students. One school recently enrolled 19 new students in one day. An elementary school is now so full that teachers are starting to operate out of mobile carts, moving from room to room, instead of having a classroom.

School districts are addressing student needs

The Greeley district’s existing welcome center, which has always helped the community’s immigrant population, is playing a big role in helping the district welcome and make families feel like they belong, said Brian Lemos, director of instruction and English language development.

But the district is also relying on community partners to help families learn to use technology, learn English, and to offer help with housing or employment.

“There’s definitely unique needs,” Lemos said. “They’re new to the country. All of them have needs as far as language acquisition.”

“A lot of these students are coming to us with severe trauma,” said Theresa Myers, a spokesperson for the Greeley district. “Some of the families from Venezuela, they’ve been trying to travel for months. Our impact on our mental health services is real.”

Right now, the district has a mental health counselor at every school. But 35 counselor and social worker positions in the district were funded by ESSER dollars that won’t be available after September. Now the district is trying to figure out how to keep the much-needed positions.

Although Colorado gives school districts extra money to assist students who are learning English, most school districts say they have to use money from their general fund to cover the services they provide because that specific money isn’t enough.

And since so many of these students arrived after October 1, the districts didn’t get the money for them this year. (If students are still enrolled next fall, the districts will get money then.) In the meantime, school districts are having to hire new staff including paraprofessionals to help teachers with larger-than-normal class sizes. In Aurora, “We have several instances in which elementary schools came back from Christmas break with almost 100 more kids than before,” Johnson said.

Legislators in Colorado are drafting a $24 million proposal to give districts some funding for these midyear enrollees. It won’t be the total funding that districts usually get per student, but it might help.

State lawmakers haven’t filed the proposal, but there are promising signs it’ll pass once they do. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has said he supports sending extra funding to districts enrolling new students, and the proposal is coming from lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee, which plays a major role in how the state spends its money.

Johnson said that Aurora isn’t waiting to see that money transferred before hiring needed positions or addressing needs. He hopes the state will reimburse some of the expenses if the money does come.

While leaders say they aren’t cutting budgets or making adjustments, they are starting to think ahead. Maybe that will mean having roaming teams that can go to the schools most impacted on a short term basis to deal with the work of helping students new to the country.

“The hard part is no one knows how long this phenomenon will last,” Johnson said. “We are trying to start putting in some thought in the long-term, if there’s a better system.”

For now, schools are helping new students from South America adapt.

“When a new student enrolls who is new to the country it’s also a matter of the daily school routines — it’s also teaching them the routines of a typical school day,” Johnson said.

That can take up a lot of time for school staff. But not all schools are receiving high numbers of new students. Schools near shelters, apartments or housing where agencies have helped migrants get settled are enrolling more students.

Educators say they aren’t currently thinking about transferring students to different schools to avoid overcrowded classrooms, but Greeley leaders say they have changed enrollment boundaries when schools were getting too full in previous situations. They might consider it if the enrollment boom continues.

School educators say, still, they want kids in school, they understand that children must learn and the faster they can connect them to educators, the better.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

‘Growing our readers’: How the Sheridan district has revived its once-closed high school library

2024-02-16T20:05:03+00:00

For years, the Sheridan district’s high school library was just empty space — a few shelves, no books, no staff.

Now, the library is thriving. Students hang out there during lunch or other free periods. They read, play games, and can even take a literature class.

The space has transformed from bare to buzzing.

“We just had old tables and chairs,” said Jenn Alevy, the digital teacher librarian. “Throughout the five years, our space has changed so much.”

Among the changes: new furniture, including a puzzle table hand-built by a student in the school’s former woodshop class.

While some schools are having to cut librarians or letting libraries languish as school budgets are strained and others are grappling with book bans, the Sheridan library continues to grow because of voter-approved funds passed in 2018.

Trenity Briscoe, 16, works on her book project during a class in the library at Sheridan High School.

Pat Sandos, the outgoing superintendent, had just been hired in 2018 when he decided to put the promise of school librarians into the proposed mill levy tax request. Before the tax measure, the district used about $40,000 from reserves to get the space ready.

“I just couldn’t believe we didn’t have a library at the high school,” Sandos said. “It’s the hub of the school. So much goes on there.”

When Sandos talked to people in the community, many didn’t know the 300-student high school had been left without a library after the county library pulled out of the school into its own building.

Having the county library in the district was complicated, leaders said, because it was difficult to control who was in the school building just for the public library. And, Sandos said, having the library nearby was not the same as having an in-house teacher librarian who could collaborate with teachers and build relationships with students.

That’s what Alevy has done.

“There’s so much opportunity, it’s critical,” Sandos said.

Leticia Salazar, a senior at Sheridan High School, said Alevy has helped her through many rough times, including a recent death in her family. Last semester, she was a library assistant. Now, she just hangs out at the library because she finds it a safe and peaceful place.

“She’s awesome,” Salazar said, of Alevy. “And she got me into reading.”

When Alevy was hired in 2019 after voters approved the tax request, she started reviving the library by ordering books and working on a three-year plan to create more integration between technology and learning.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, schools went to remote learning, the library shut down – and Alevy’s plan to incorporate more digital learning became a plan she had to integrate right away.

She was the go-to for teachers on any technology questions, and helped many navigate remote learning software.

Now that schools have gone back to in-person learning, she still tries to collaborate with teachers, recommending books for various lessons they plan and suggesting ways to incorporate reading or digital learning when appropriate.

Students hang out at the Sheridan High School library during lunch or other free periods, including to play games.

Maegan Daigler, the district’s executive director of assessment & technology, said the mill levy funds pay for the salaries of librarians at the district schools and funds each year are also used to help grow the library’s collection.

The goal is to grow the book collection about 10% each year as funds allow, she said.

“It’s a priority,” Daigler said.

During the time the library was closed due to remote learning, Alevy ordered digital books for students to check out, but has since found that students prefer physical copies of books to read.

The library now has more than 4,500 books, including a few hundred Spanish books, many Stephen King novels, the popular Colleen Hoover titles, and lots of manga.

For many of the Spanish books, Alevy likes to get the English and Spanish versions so students can read them side-by-side if they like. She also gets some audiobooks that can be a helpful addition when students are trying to learn English.

From left to right Students Aidan Cordova, 17, Rock Himebaugh, 17, and Isaac Rosales, 16, play the card game UNO in the library during their lunch break at Sheridan High School.

The students in newcomer classes check out lots of books, she said. About a third of the school’s 300 students are English learners.

“Students will challenge themselves when they’re picking up a book,” Alevy said. “If it gets them to read, I will buy them.”

This year Alevy started offering a new elective class, Introduction to Literature, where students read, write about what they read, and then will promote the books they read in the library.

“We’re growing our readers,” Alevy said. “It’s slowly working.”

Each of the 10 students in the class picked a theme and planned out which books they would read this semester to fit that theme.

One of the school’s most avid readers, Kaitlyn Miller, a 15-year-old sophomore, has already read six books for the class this semester. She’s focusing her project on two themes: mystical creatures, and how people feel when they lose someone they love.

As Miller described her project, she noted: “I probably need to get some more books.”

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the last names of Leticia Salazar and Rock Himebaugh, and to reflect that the Sheridan library has more than 4,500 books in its collection now.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado budget committee plans aid for schools enrolling more migrant students

2024-02-14T22:25:39+00:00

This story has been updated to include a comment from the governor.

Colorado lawmakers on the powerful Joint Budget Committee want to provide some financial assistance to schools grappling with educating an influx of migrant students this year.

The idea from state Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat who sits on the committee, would allocate up to $24 million, to be split among school districts that have enrolled newly arrived students after the October cutoff date that determines districts’ per-pupil funding. But the funding would be far less than what the state provides to educate a student.

The budget committee, which plays a major role in how the state spends its money, voted unanimously earlier this month to draft a bill allocating the funds.

Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and vice chair of the committee, said she plans to co-sponsor the bill once it’s ready. The bill has not yet been introduced.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis said he’s working with the legislature on a proposal to provide additional funding for school districts that have new arrivals after the October count date.

Public school enrollment in Colorado: Here’s what you need to know

The state annually adjusts districts’ education funding up or down during the legislative session based on each district’s student enrollment on Oct. 1. But the surge in migrant students since the official count has overwhelmed many districts and prompted calls from school leaders for more aid to teach recent arrivals.

Sirota said while the state doesn’t have an exact tally, she’s heard estimates of up to 8,000 new student arrivals statewide since October. Some schools have needed to increase class sizes and have a greater need for services that help English learners, she said.

“This crisis is being felt across our cities, counties, and the state,” she said.

The state money would be a one-time infusion for districts. Joint Budget Committee members have said they want to ensure school districts wouldn’t need to apply for the money, but instead would have to provide the state with a tally of eligible students.

How much money districts would get likely will depend on whether the committee decides to allocate the full $24 million Sirota has proposed and how many newly arrived students have enrolled statewide since the October count.

The $24 million sum is not a calculation of how much it costs to fully educate the migrant students in Colorado. Rather, it is money the state would otherwise put in its savings account for education. Increasing local tax revenue means the state needs to spend $24 million less on schools this year than anticipated.

The proposed bill would reallocate those funds, but committee members have said they want to also find other funding sources.

The extra money would help districts, but it would be less than the $10,614 per student, on average, they get for students who are enrolled during the October count.

Sirota said funding is tight this year, especially when there are many competing budget priorities. But the extra funding would help districts bearing the brunt of the costs.

“I want to help our districts better absorb the costs that they are incurring with so many new students who are new to the country that they have taken on since October,” she said.

States across the country have seen a spike in recent migrant arrivals. The Denver area has dealt with the brunt of those arrivals.

In Denver Public Schools, migrant student enrollment has ballooned by more than 3,200 of these young people since the start of the school year. Many arrived after the October count that determined state per-student funding sent by the state.

The impact has also been uneven within the district. New students are concentrated in about two dozen of Denver’s schools.

But schools and cities across the metro area and state are reporting more students arriving every day, either from families moving to find work or recently coming to the state. The influx has caused financial shortfalls and pushback from some communities.

Correction: This story has been corrected to update the per pupil figure districts get from the state.

Why some Colorado lawmakers say funding for K-12 schools is at 1989 levels

2024-02-05T21:26:48+00:00

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Colorado is nearing the end of the Budget Stabilization Factor era.

Since 2009, Colorado lawmakers have channeled over $10 billion from schools to other priorities, a policy called the “BS Factor.” Gov. Jared Polis and lawmakers want to stop diverting money from schools to “fully fund” the state’s obligation in the proposed 2024-25 budget.

But, some Democratic lawmakers argue Colorado won’t be spending at 2024-25 levels. Instead, they point to 1989. And no, not the Taylor Swift album.

“Just because we’ve paid off the budget stabilization factor and we are finally fully funding our schools, we are actually fully funding them at 1989 levels,” said state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and vice chair of the powerful Joint Budget Committee, at Chalkbeat’s Legislative Preview event last month. “So we still have some more work to do.”

Here’s why, they say: When you adjust for inflation, Colorado’s spending next year would be about the same as 34 years ago.

I’m proud that we're finally paying off the BS factor for K-12 funding. But, eliminating the BS just gets us back to 1989 funding levels. That's a pretty far cry from "fully funding." #copolitics pic.twitter.com/7UtbSWQCWB
— Rep. Chris deGruy Kennedy (@Kennedy4CO) January 11, 2024

In 1989, Colorado spent $4,629 per student. Next year, the state projects to spend $11,319 per student.

Schools need to stretch the money further than in 1989, according to Tracie Rainey, Colorado School Finance Project executive director, a school funding advocate.

Because how much we spend on education doesn’t account for the changes that the nation, the state, and their communities now hold districts accountable for, such as more testing and higher standards, Rainey said.

School funding (Colorado’s version)

For nearly 30 years, Colorado has ranked below most of the country in school funding, Rainey said.

Coloradans have created tax policies that lowered their property tax bills, and decreased what was spent for statewide services — including education, she said.

Voters adopted the Gallagher Amendment in 1982 to reduce housing assessment rates. Then in 1992, voters approved the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, otherwise known as TABOR. The constitutional amendment limits government spending and requires voter approval for certain taxes. Any excess dollars collected above the TABOR cap must be returned to taxpayers.

With less money going toward schools, voters in 2000 approved Amendment 23 to return education spending to 1989 levels. The provision required per-student spending to increase by inflation plus 1% each year until 2011. After that, per-student spending would increase each year by at least the rate of inflation.

As Colorado neared its goal, the Great Recession hit. A year later in 2009, Colorado lawmakers began to funnel money away from K-12 education through the Budget Stabilization Factor, known at the time as the “negative factor,” to fund other crucial obligations.

That’s why, with the factor’s end, Colorado is now back to 1989.

It’s almost over now. But what’s next?

Last week, the state received recommendations from a School Finance Task Force on a new formula to fund schools. The formula hasn’t seen a major update since 1994.

The new formula will require the state to spend $474 million more dollars on schools, although the task force recommends phasing in the new formula starting this year. Lawmakers say money will be tight if they want to eliminate the BS Factor and fund other priorities.

The school funding formula answers the question of how to divvy up state dollars. But there’s another question, too: what’s an “adequate” level of funding?

What do schools need to account for the years of shifting expectations, including providing Information Technology services, required testing, student mental health care and an increase in English learning students?

Additionally, teachers statewide have called for salary increases, with the state struggling to keep many educators in the classroom, and districts facing other challenges, like the rising cost of health care and benefits.

Colorado has for years used grant programs to offset some costs for school districts, Rainey said. But there are haves and have nots — many large school districts have grant writers but some small districts have superintendents filling in on bus routes, she said. And, grants also expire.

Now, the state will await two adequacy studies, due by January 2025, that will give lawmakers a better idea of what districts need financially to teach students.

It’s important work, because what’s adequate for a district changes based on the community, Rainey said. For instance, Cherry Creek has high schools with thousands of students, while 100 districts have less than 1,000 total students.

“I would hope that when this analysis is done, lawmakers see what that base level of funding should be so that every student, no matter what district they’re in, has an amount that reflects what they need in order to meet the expectations that the state is holding them to,” Rainey said. “And I think that’s going to be a really important benchmark.”

Even then, Colorado lawmakers could still face funding challenges.

If the adequacy studies say the state must spend a lot more on education, lawmakers would then need to debate how to raise revenue, Rainey said. A referendum sent to voters would be the fastest way to increase state funding, but tax increases are unpopular with voters.

“We would need state level leadership from the governor to legislators on down to support this so voters would say, ‘Yes,’ " she said.

New recommendations would overhaul Colorado’s school funding formula. Now, lawmakers have to figure out how to pay for it.

2024-02-03T01:20:17+00:00

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A proposed overhaul of Colorado’s school funding formula is being hailed as long overdue, though lawmakers are wondering how they’ll pay for it and some education advocates say it’s only a partial answer to decades of underfunding.

Under the proposal, Colorado schools would get more money to meet the needs of English learners and students with disabilities, and rural districts would get more funding to address their challenges.

If adopted, it would be the first major change in 30 years to how Colorado divvies up funding to schools. The proposal, released this week, is the work of a 17-member task force that managed to reach agreement on thorny issues that have tanked previous efforts to reform the current formula, which is widely viewed as out-of-date and unfair.

“With the formula change, the state can really target those resources to the kids who need the most,” said task force member Brenda Dickhoner, CEO of the conservative education advocacy group Ready Colorado. “We are really moving away from a one-size-fits-all educational model to a really individualized model that takes place in a variety of different types of educational settings. And I think that is what’s going to close our achievement gaps.”

But the new formula would require about $474 million to implement — a roughly 8.9% increase in state education funding — when lawmakers already expect a tight budget year and want to spend money on other priorities, including higher education.

And some proposed changes could get pushback. Even task force members disagreed on some details, such as how to fairly account for higher costs in different parts of the state. State Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who will co-sponsor the school finance act, said she’s open to the recommendations. But she also wants to better understand how the new formula — which would permanently increase education funding — would affect spending in future years, especially because the state would need to use its savings to pay for the changes.

“I originally thought that we should definitely not do anything this year,” said Zenzinger, vice chair of the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee. “Now having read the report, I’m more open to contemplating changes that we can make this year.”

What does the formula do?

In a letter from the task force, Chair Chuck Carpenter, who also serves as Denver Public Schools chief financial officer, said the legislature charged the group with creating a “simpler, less regressive, more adequate, understandable, transparent, equitable, and student-centered” school finance formula. The task force brought together a bipartisan collective of advocacy groups and educators from across the state.

Carpenter said the state’s formula was created before the current understanding of what public schools should be, including greater expectations involving standards, testing, and curriculum.

The task force report said it expects the legislature to consider the recommendations as a whole.

“Hopefully the work of this task force will lead to substantive changes or at least incremental improvement,” he said in the letter. “Our work need not and will not be the final word.”

This is the latest of many efforts to rewrite the school finance formula over the last decade. The current formula gives far more weight to district characteristics, such as district size and whether the cost of living is high, than it does to factors like how many students live in poverty. The result is that some wealthy districts end up with more state funding than poor ones.

But efforts to change the formula have faced stiff political headwinds because no district wants to get less money. Lawmakers created the task force after a previous school finance committee disbanded without recommending a formula rewrite.

The new formula would increase base student funding, so nearly every district would get more money. It also would dramatically increase how much more districts get for each student from a low-income household, each English learner, each student with a disability, and each gifted student.

Overall, districts serving students with higher needs, districts with low property wealth, and small, rural districts would come out ahead.

Districts with a higher cost of living still would get more money, but not as much as in the current formula. How to account for those differences could see more debate. Thirteen of the state’s 178 districts are projected to lose money under the recommended formula, including Douglas County, Boulder Valley, Littleton, Cheyenne Mountain, Academy 20, Poudre, and Aspen. These districts all serve more affluent communities, though for years they have pointed out they have to pay teachers more to live there and spend more on basic services.

Task force member Riley Kitts, Democrats for Education Reform’s senior director of policy and government affairs, said the group reached a strong consensus on most of the changes, which he called long overdue.

The task force is also working on studies to determine how much Colorado should spend on K-12 schools if it wants to see better outcomes. Those studies are due by January 2025.

Kitts said he believes the studies shouldn’t hold up a formula change this year.

Lawmakers and education leaders are reviewing the report

The recommendations come as lawmakers have committed to “fully fund” K-12 education for the first time since the Great Recession. That means ending the practice of holding back money — more than $10 billion in the last decade — to pay for other budget priorities.

Even doing that requires dipping into education reserves. At the same time, federal pandemic aid is expiring, revenue is down slightly, and lawmakers are struggling to pay for behavioral health, affordable housing, and a slew of other priorities.

Ultimately, lawmakers, especially the powerful six-member Joint Budget Committee, will decide whether they can afford to start the phase-in this year.

In a statement, a spokesperson for Gov. Jared Polis said districts serving students with higher needs have been short changed for years, and the governor looks forward to conversations with legislators, school districts, and others about the best way to make a difference for students through the formula this year.

Senate President Stephen Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat, said in a statement he is grateful for the recommendations and members will dig in to see what’s feasible for implementation this year.

House Education Chair state Rep. Barbara McLachlan, a Durango Democrat, said her initial read left her pleased because it tries to address funding issues for rural schools. If it can’t be adopted this year, she hopes to at least see a plan for when it would be.

“Let’s use the work and not ignore it,” she said.

Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, called the work an “incremental — miniscule — step in the right direction.”

Lundeen said he’d prefer to see money fund students at the school level, instead of left to districts to distribute. And he would have liked to see money for schools that are getting strong results educating students.

Lundeen wouldn’t commit to supporting the formula changes.

“I’m working diligently to make it better,” he said. “I’m not going to say yes to something that is subpar to where I think it can get.”

Some education advocates have reservations. Tracie Rainey, Colorado School Finance Project executive director, said she wants to see the results of the adequacy studies first. Those might suggest different funding levels than those in the current recommendations.

Analyses that account for regional cost differences put Colorado about $2,000 below the national average in per-student spending. Rainey said half a billion dollars more won’t get Colorado to the national benchmark.

“If they can wait to do things until they get the adequacy study, then the state can really build out a roadmap and a plan because you have all the information,” Rainey said. “You still don’t have a lot of information.”

And Amie Baca-Oehlert, Colorado Education Association president, said that the formula illustrates statewide underfunding of K-12 schools. She wants Colorado lawmakers to talk about how to increase revenue for schools, “because the state needs the right revenue to do this.”

“Our hope is that this just continues to build the momentum to help voters understand and stand with us when we go to the ballot for a revenue fix for education,” she said.

Jeffco is spending $45 million at schools that have welcomed students from closed buildings

2023-12-07T00:09:44+00:00

The Jeffco district spent more than $45 million on upgrades to schools taking in students from the 16 elementary schools that closed at the end of last school year.

That cost includes projects that were specifically designed to accommodate the new students, but also projects that were in the works before.

Last December, district staff told the board they expected to spend up to $32 million to expand classrooms, buy new furniture, retrofit buildings that needed to accommodate students with disabilities, or create preschool classrooms.

Figures obtained by Chalkbeat through an open records request this month show the district ultimately ended up spending $45.3 million at 22 welcoming schools. But the district could not say how much of that difference is because of higher than anticipated costs, or covering the projects already in the works and not related to the school closures.

The figure includes $7.5 million specifically used to add preschool classrooms as the state rolled out universal preschool. Campbell Elementary, for instance, one of the 16 closed schools, was turned into a preschool center for the area, and had more than $3 million in upgrades. Preschool classrooms are regulated to require certain building accommodations for preschool-age children.

Jeffco schools have had declining enrollment for years. After a few sudden school closures, the district started a comprehensive plan to close several schools. The district said it would help its budget, but also was concerned about the limitations of what small schools offered students and the inequities growing from school to school. The school closures are estimated to save the district $12 million a year in ongoing operating expenses, but renovating other schools to receive those students has proved more expensive than the district expected.

Seanin Rosario, Jeffco’s executive director of finance, planning, and analysis, said the costs specifically related to accommodating more students are “most likely closer” to the $32 million estimated a year ago. “Our system was not able to track only welcoming schools’ projects because there are instances where the projects overlapped,” she wrote in an email.

Some schools that received upgrades had not initially been designated as welcoming schools. Students weren’t forced to go to any one school, and still could participate in open enrollment. So, after many students from closed schools chose a particular school, the district had to designate it as a welcoming school to provide support, including capital upgrades.

Rosario said funding for the projects came from the district’s capital reserve fund. The expenditures are one-time costs. The district is also beginning the process of deciding what to do with the closed buildings, including selling or leasing them.

Look up how much the district spent at each of the 22 schools that took in students from closed elementary schools:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Hoping to boost math scores, Colorado invests in second year of Zearn online learning program

2023-12-01T01:32:21+00:00

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As camera shutters clicked and politicians and policymakers huddled in the back of a Denver classroom Thursday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis walked between the desks of sixth graders whose eyes and ears were glued to their computer screens, multiplying fractions.

The program the students were using, Zearn Math, is a key part of Polis’ plan to boost math scores in Colorado and help students recover from the pandemic. Just 1 in 3 students scored at grade-level in math on state tests last spring.

Polis was at Marie L. Greenwood Early-8 in far northeast Denver to hype Zearn in the hopes that more school districts will adopt the program, which the state is offering to schools for free this year. About 65% of Colorado districts are already using it, Polis said.

“We want to really take this opportunity to get the message out across the state: We would love that other 35% of schools to also take advantage of what the state is supporting,” he said.

And districts will have another year to do so. Polis announced Thursday that the state is investing an additional $3 million in federal COVID relief, on top of the $6 million in COVID aid it already set aside, to extend to the 2024-25 school year the offer to pay for Zearn licenses. The state has also been paying to train teachers to use the digital platform.

“We know this will lead to major improvements in math achievement,” Polis said, “which is so important for success in today’s world. Whether you go to college or not, no matter what field you enter, basic math skills — numeracy — is so incredibly important.”

Noire Lin, the teacher whose classroom Polis visited, said in an interview that Zearn has helped students “take more charge of how they’re learning.” Lin’s students — and all students at Greenwood — use Zearn for 30 minutes a day, three times per week.

“It’s aligned to what I teach in class,” Lin said. “But sometimes they’ll go home and be like, ‘I really don’t know if the teacher was teaching it correctly to me.’ So they go home [and] they do Zearn. They get to watch a video. They get to have step-by-step breaking down the problems.”

Colorado Department of Education officials said the state doesn’t yet have data showing whether Zearn is making a difference since schools started using it this fall. The governor’s team chose Zearn without running a competitive bidding process, based on studies provided by the company that showed students who used Zearn regularly made more progress than those who didn’t.

After Polis left, several of the 11-year-olds in Lin’s class gave Zearn mostly positive reviews.

Kevin Villalba said he likes “the sprint,” which is when Zearn gives students a limited amount of time to answer as many math questions as they can. Mia Villa likes the practice questions, and how, if she gets an answer wrong, Zearn explains why and shows her the right steps.

“I sometimes have trouble with math,” Villa said. “Before I had a D or a C, and now I have a B or an A in math.” Zearn, she added, “helps a lot of kids get better in their math.”

But across the table, Valeria Sierra said she’s “not that big of a fan.”

“It could be stressful,” Sierra said, especially a Zearn feature called “the tower of power.”

“If you do a mistake, it removes all your progress,” Sierra said. “And at the same time, it’s kind of hard because it’s a little bit different [from] how our teachers teach us math. And it’s sometimes difficult because the videos they show us doesn’t explain that much.”

Melanie Asmar is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado, covering Denver Public Schools. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.

Many school district tax measures on November ballot would pay for teacher salaries

2023-11-02T21:54:53+00:00

Many of the more than a dozen tax measures Colorado school districts put on the ballot for the Nov. 7 election are intended to fund teacher and staff salary increases that officials say are urgently needed.

District leaders say they are facing budget crunches from various factors such as drops in enrollment and an end to federal COVID-relief funding. Some districts say they’re having a hard time hiring enough teachers and keeping them.

Alan Kaylor, superintendent of the Weld Re-8 school district in Fort Lupton, said his district started this school year with 18 vacancies out of about 210 certified teachers.

That’s more than in the past, he said.

“It used to be in special education, math, science, but it’s kind of across the board right now,” Kaylor said. “It’s hard to recruit teachers.”

School districts around the metro area have been raising salaries. In Westminster, the school district raised starting pay to $61,000 this year. According to the Colorado Education Association, 30 unions have won an 8% or higher raise this year. A few districts, including Aurora and Sheridan, have struggled to negotiate raises.

Weld Re-8 is asking voters to approve a $4 million mill levy override and a $70 million bond request. For at least the first year, the measures would not cost homeowners any more in property taxes. The bond issue would go to funding building upgrades, but the mill levy override would help raise the starting salary for teachers from $45,000 to $52,000.

Kaylor said that even though Re-8 is considered a rural district, with about 2,500 students, it borders larger urban districts including St. Vrain Valley School District, where the starting salary for teachers is $56,000. On top of that, he said, houses in the community are priced in the $500,000 range, similar to the metro areas.

“My teachers are locked out from that market,” Kaylor said. “We don’t have many multifamily units either. Those tend to be filled. Most of my teachers live out on that I-25 corridor. They drive right through St. Vrain to get here.”

Re-8 is growing in enrollment, one of few districts in the state that is. But Kaylor said other budget issues coming up are related to the end of COVID relief funding.

The relief money wasn’t used in his district to fund teacher salaries, but he did use it to pay for new support positions such as instructional coaches that may not have funding to continue next year.

Kaylor is also concerned about the upcoming cost of renewing licenses for online programs purchased during the pandemic that teachers still use and whether he’ll be able to find funding to maintain an online program the district still offers as an option for about 50 students who preferred the model.

In Englewood, another small district requesting a $4 million mill levy override, the district has had to spend down reserves, or savings, in order to increase salaries for teachers over the past few years.

The Englewood district, south of Denver, has had a drop of more than 11% in enrollment in the last five years.

If the measure is approved, the district already negotiated an increase of 5% for teachers and a minimum increase of 7.5% for classified staff, both effective Jan. 1.

Englewood’s tax request would not increase property taxes for homeowners because the measure would simultaneously lower the taxes for the bond approved in 2016.

In Douglas County, the district is trying a second year in a row to ask voters for a mill levy tax measure. The $66 million mill levy override would pay for teacher raises. Last year, the same measure failed by less than 1% of the vote.

Superintendent Erin Kane said average salaries for teachers in the Douglas County school district are $19,000 less than in neighboring districts. It has meant more vacancies at the start of the school year.

At one elementary school, a teacher who took another job elsewhere over the summer was not able to be replaced in time for the school year to start. The school had to combine three second grade classrooms into two, with 33 students each.

“That’s the very real impact,” she said.

In talking to the community about the need for the measure this year, Kane said that voters understand that teachers deserve a raise, and that a teacher hired at $45,209 — the current starting salary — can’t afford living in Douglas County.

“It’s a shift in our community,” Kane said, of having more teachers commuting into the district for work.

But the challenge, she said, is helping voters understand how Colorado school districts are funded.

“Our community is under the impression that since their local property taxes are going up that their schools would be benefiting from that,” Kane said. “Higher local property taxes just means less money from the state.”

Colorado runs a formula that dictates how much money each district should have per student. The money comes first from local property taxes, and then the state fills in the gap, to get the funding to what the formula says it should be. Districts get more money than the formula says they should only when voters approve local tax measures that are on top of the regular property taxes.

In Douglas County, Kane tells voters the district is getting $2,000 less per student than neighboring districts because of those local measures, meaning the salaries she can offer are less competitive.

“I would have told you last year it was urgent,” Kane said. “This year it’s a crisis.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Proposed Colorado budget would fully fund K-12 schools for first time since Great Recession

2023-11-02T00:08:46+00:00

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Next year’s Colorado budget could mark the first time since the Great Recession that the state meets its constitutional obligations to fund K-12 schools.

Gov. Jared Polis released his proposed budget on Wednesday. It includes an additional $564.1 million for K-12 education and brings an end to what has been known as the budget stabilization factor, a mechanism that allows lawmakers to divert K-12 funding to other priorities.

Polis said the money would allow school districts to lower class size and pay teachers more. His budget also includes $42.7 million more for higher education institutions, financial aid, and student support.

Amendment 23 requires that K-12 funding increase every year by the rate of population growth plus inflation. But since 2009, through the budget stabilization factor, lawmakers have diverted over $10 billion that should go to K-12 schools. When they set this year’s budget, they promised to end the practice altogether next year.

Polis’ proposed budget sticks with that promise, though he warned that nothing is set in stone.

“It’s not a done deal in that sense because previous legislators can’t force the funding,” Polis said.

Polis is required to craft a budget proposal every year by Nov. 1. But the budget lawmakers adopt in March or April is actually written by the six legislators on the Joint Budget Committee.

Polis’ budget would bring total state spending to $43.5 billion and calls for new investments in housing, health care, renewable energy, and public safety in addition to education.

Polis’ 2024-25 fiscal year budget would increase K-12 funding to about $9.67 billion, or about 6% more than this year. The budget earmarks $705 more per student in funding, or an about 6.6% increase. Statewide, that would bring per pupil spending to $11,319.

The budget doesn’t factor in the effects of Proposition HH. If voters approve the complex property tax relief measure, school districts would have less money from local property taxes and the state would have to increase its own schools funding to make up the difference. However, there should be enough money in the state education fund, a sort of savings account, to cover that obligation.

If Proposition HH doesn’t pass, lawmakers could be debating property taxes again, with uncertain impacts.

The governor also wants $39.7 million more for college and university budgets and financial aid for students. Another $3 million would be used to support the college attendance of youth who have experienced homelessness.

Colleges and universities would also be allowed to increase tuition 2% for in-state and 6% for out-of-state students.

In previous years, college and university leaders have banded together to request more funding. Last year, higher education leaders said the governor’s budget didn’t include enough to cover inflationary increases, increased student services, and increased wages.

“Everybody always wants more money and institutions of higher education are no exception, but we’re confident that we can meet these goals,” Polis said.

Other K-12 and higher education highlights include:

$15 million to fully fund the state’s Charter School Mill Levy Equalization fund, bringing the total to $42 million. This money would provide state-authorized charter schools with similar funding to district-authorized charter schools, which benefit from additional local property taxes.
$8 million more focused on science, technology, engineering, and math grants to fund after-school enrichment and programming.
$4.3 million for universal preschool. About $3.3 million go to better the state’s technology systems after a rocky rollout. Another $1 million would go toward improving quality among providers.
$7.8 million to boost work-based learning in K-12 schools, $5 million to address statewide veterinary shortages, and $3.1 million for educational talent mentorship programs to help support teachers.
$2 million in grant funding and $30 million in tax credits to expand apprenticeship programs. Polis also wants $2 million and $30 million in tax credits to support Opportunity Now grants, or a program that helps develop public-private partnerships focused on workforce development.

For the last several years, Republicans have pushed for more school funding and accused the Democrats who control the legislature of expanding other government programs at the expense of schools. Democrats have said they want to increase school funding responsibly and sustainably — and the state only now has the resources to meet its constitutional obligations.

In a press release in response to Polis’ budget, Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, referred back to that history.

“After years of Republican demands that we fully fund students — instead of growing state government, we are glad to see Governor Polis chose to follow our leadership and prioritize funding for students and teachers,” Lundeen said. “It is critically important that the budget proposal acknowledges that charter school students are public school students and deserve equal funding support.”

Polis’ budget was met with praise by the Colorado Education Association.

In a news release, the association, which represents nearly 40,000 educators, said the governor’s budget underscores the attentiveness to their concerns and an unwavering commitment to strengthening public education.

“We are ready to move into our fully funded era,” said Amie Baca-Oehlert, a high school counselor and president of the association. “We applaud Governor Polis for taking swift action to address the long-standing funding challenges faced by Colorado’s public schools.”

Polis will need to update his budget in January. That budget will then head to the Joint Budget Committee, which will craft a budget that will be voted on by the House and Senate. During that time, House and Senate members can propose amendments that will then be considered by the budget committee before the final budget is approved.

Aurora school district and teachers union deadlock on pay, call for outside help

2023-10-11T00:48:56+00:00

Negotiations between the Aurora school district and its teacher union have failed to produce an agreement on this year’s pay, and now the groups are again calling on an outside party to help them, using a step called fact-finding.

In this step, an outside investigator researches arguments from both sides and then provides an opinion and possible recommendations. It’s part of a series of steps laid out in the teachers union contract to resolve disputes when an agreement can’t be reached. In Aurora, the results of the fact-finding report are not binding.

The two sides already went through a previous step in the process, a negotiation session with an arbitrator. That happened earlier this summer after months of negotiations produced no agreement. But it didn’t help.

It could take a few months for a fact finder to complete the investigation and submit a report. In the meantime, teachers in Aurora have not received any raise this year, and don’t know if they will.

“Our teachers aren’t feeling valued or respected,” said Linnea Reed-Ellis, president of the Aurora teachers union. “It’s definitely having an effect on morale.”

Salaries and distribution of raises at issue in Aurora

The master contract for the union in Aurora is in effect through 2028, but each year, certain issues can be renegotiated in addition to salaries. The contract bars teachers from striking while the contract is in effect, but protracted negotiations raise the risk that teachers will leave the district.

In some cases, Reed-Ellis said, teachers who recently completed a higher education credential like a master’s degree expected a pay bump as laid out in the past salary agreements, but haven’t gotten it, pending a new salary agreement.

Requesting fact-finding during union negotiations isn’t common. Jeffco went to fact finding in negotiations with support staff in 2021. According to the Colorado Educators Association, that’s been the only one in recent years. But now, besides Aurora, Sheridan is also scheduled for fact-finding in December, and Lake County in January.

According to CEA, 30 unions won an 8% or higher raise for their licensed staff this year. That includes Aurora’s neighbors, Denver and Cherry Creek.

“We have seen more activity, not just in the education sector,” said Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of CEA. “People are really at a point, and especially in education, we’re just so intensely feeling the ramifications of decades of underfunding, and we’ve been talking about it for a while, about how people are having to work two to three jobs just to make ends meet.”

“Different districts are approaching that differently,” she said.

In Aurora, part of the issue is how raises might be distributed.

The Aurora school district set aside $21.5 million in its budget to cover raises for this current school year, but wants to devote most of that to raising the district’s starting salary, which district leaders say has fallen behind neighboring districts.

In Aurora, the current starting salary for a new teacher with just a bachelor’s degree is $46,894. In Cherry Creek, by comparison, it’s $58,710, and in Denver, it’s $54,141.

Brett Johnson, chief financial officer for the Aurora school district, said that over the past 10 years, the district’s raises for veteran teachers have been double those for starting teachers. Experienced teachers — those with at least 10 years but less than 25 years in the classroom — have seen their salaries go up between $18,000 and $19,000 over the last decade, Johnson said, while the district’s starting salary has increased by just $9,500.

“I would argue that’s in part why we’re here, and why it is hard for us to fill vacancies,” Johnson said.

The district said that from 2019 through 2021, each first day of school, the district started with more than 98% of positions filled. In fall of 2022, that dropped to 94.88%, and this fall school started with 95.92% of positions filled.

Both proposals would allow teachers to get a raise for a gaining an additional year of experience and for having completed more education,

The teachers union proposal would also bump up all salaries in the salary schedule by another $5,500 per year.

Reed-Ellis, the president of the local teachers union, said that surveys of their members show that teachers don’t want uneven raises.

“The proposal from the district came back as incredibly disrespectful to our members,” Reed-Ellis said. “Veteran educators, these are the people who have stuck it out through COVID and the Great Recession and remained dedicated to our district.”

Aurora school district cites last year’s raises

Johnson, the district CFO, believes that the union proposal would cost the district four times what it has budgeted.

Johnson said that while the district does have an increase in revenue, half of it was already factored into covering the nearly 8.5% raises teachers got last year.

“School finance has a one-year lag in terms of how it applies inflation,” Johnson said. “We didn’t want to wait. We wanted to give relief for our staff one year early, so we spent one-time money of our reserves to do that.”

The district was counting on this year’s increase in revenue to maintain those increases moving forward, he said, meaning only the $21.5 million that has been budgeted is available for raises.

That is one of the factors that the union and the district disagree on.

Aurora Superintendent Michael Giles said the district is “extremely motivated to appropriately compensate our educators.”

“My greatest hope is that we’re able to sooner rather than later,” he added.

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Sheridan teacher pay negotiations stall amid tight budgets, sinking enrollment

2023-06-22T20:00:48+00:00

Teachers in the Sheridan school district south of Denver are concerned about pay. While neighboring districts are offering double-digit percentage salary increases to their educators, Sheridan teachers have been offered just 2%.

District officials are concerned about declining enrollment, which they say is affecting district revenues. Last year alone, the district, which served 1,125 students, lost 476 students to other districts.

The teachers union sees it all as part of the same cycle: Low pay prompts teachers to leave, creating turnover and instability. Frustrated families leave the district for schools that can provide more stability. Enrollment declines, the district loses revenue, budgets get tighter, and raises require tough trade-offs.

But the two sides aren’t talking anymore. Negotiations stalled over the pay issue, and the district and the union are headed for mediation beginning July 28, a schedule that leaves teachers uncertain about their pay well into the summer.

“It’s causing me a bit of anxiety,” said Kate Biester, a high school teacher and union leader.

The stalemate over teacher pay points to a larger question for districts like Sheridan: What happens when a district that’s already small keeps shrinking?

Other Denver metro districts facing enrollment and revenue declines are closing or consolidating schools, which creates disruption but helps free up some money for the students and schools that remain.

But in Sheridan and other small districts, the limited number of schools leaves fewer options for closing buildings.

Sheridan district leaders declined to talk about the negotiations or the impact of enrollment declines on district finances. They said that there were no documents about the salary offer that they could release as public records, and that they don’t have recorded video of the negotiations. Under Colorado law, negotiations between teachers unions and school districts are public.

Biester said the teachers’ position in the negotiations was met with a lack of compassion.

“We did not feel that our story was listened to,” she said. “We were told several times to hurry up and stop being repetitive about things that are really close to home. I work 16-hour days often, and I might not be able to afford my rent next year.”

Enrollment declines are accelerating

The enrollment declines in Sheridan are real: The district had 1,125 students enrolled in the fall of 2022, down nearly 20% since 2017. The overall population of children in Sheridan has dropped as well, census data shows, but not as fast.

Arapahoe County’s birth rates have dropped since 2000 but are projected to rise in 2025.

According to district budget presentations, the district is projected to receive about $13.5 million in funding for the 2023-24 school year, up from last year. The district presentation states that last year, the district received about $12.8 million, although state calculations put last year’s revenue at closer to $13.4 million.

The district has five schools: an early childhood center, a K-2 elementary school, a middle school for grades 3-8, a high school, and an alternative secondary school.

Merging those schools hasn’t been a part of discussions, district leaders say.

“I don’t know the physical space would allow it,” said Superintendent Pat Sandos, who retired, but will return in July for a one-year transition. “It probably would cost us money to do that.”

Instead, district documents show the board had pressed the superintendent and district leaders to come up with a marketing plan to keep students from leaving the district.

Sandos, who received a 17% raise in 2021, said the district has focused on developing a training program that partners with trade unions in the area to create a path for students to work in the trades. The district has spent millions in remodeling a building for that program.

The district has offered teachers a 2% raise. The school board president said raising pay beyond that would require cutting staff.

With high turnover, students are ‘used to their teachers leaving’

Even with the threat to revenues, teachers say the district can do better. They started out wanting a 12% raise, in line with a projected increase in state per-pupil funding to districts.

By the end of negotiations this spring, they had come down to requesting a 10% increase.

Teachers say the district needs to focus on what they see as the cause of the accelerating enrollment declines: Families are tired of long-term substitutes, a decrease in program offerings, and staff turnover.

Sheridan teachers say it’s easy to make more money by moving to nearby districts that have been giving teachers larger raises.

Currently the starting salary for teachers in Sheridan is $50,991, and the average is $64,813. Both of those figures are lower than in neighboring districts. In Denver, the average salary is $66,141, and in Littleton, it’s $75,434.

In the last school year, teacher turnover in Sheridan was at almost 40% — one of the highest in the state. The number of teachers in the district has dropped from about 100 in 2017 to 75 in 2022.

“I had a kid say to me on my first day, ‘Mrs., you’re not going to be here next year. That’s just how it goes here.’” Biester said. “They’re just used to their teachers leaving.”

Teachers also say offerings for extracurricular activities and electives like music, art, and shop are being cut.

Sandos said that’s not a district decision, but said he allows principals to make program cuts to fit their budget, as they see fit.

Sharena Del Brocco, a middle school teacher who has worked in Sheridan about 10 years, said it all contributes to why students leave the district.

“Kids are getting subs, we’re not retaining high quality teachers, and people keep leaving,” Del Brocco said. “So the kids feel abandoned.”

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

$9 billion Colorado education budget signed, but still doesn’t meet obligations for full funding

2023-05-16T00:02:49+00:00

Gov. Jared Polis on Monday signed into law Colorado’s school finance act, laying the path toward eliminating a state practice used since the Great Recession that holds back money from schools.

In the 2023-24 school year, the state will spend more than $9 billion on education and withhold $141 million from schools. Statewide, spending per student next year will increase to $10,614, $1,000 more per student than this year.

The school finance bill also will fund state-authorized charter schools at a level similar to other schools starting in 2023-24, adding more than $42 million for those schools. State-authorized charter schools don’t get a cut of locally raised tax dollars as district schools do.

Rural schools will get $30 million more to help with their higher costs related to smaller student populations. Colorado rural schools have gotten similar state aid since 2017.

Polis, surrounded by lawmakers, educators, and students at Thornton Elementary School, also signed two bills on Monday that will boost special education funding and provide statewide support for math instruction.

Together, the bills represent a significant investment in K-12 education statewide and a promise to fully meet the constitutionally set minimum for education spending by the 2024-25 school year.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis sits ready to sign the 2023 school finance bill as Lt. Gov. Diane Primavera stands behind him and state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat, talks about the bill on Monday at Thornton Elementary School.

Polis said the school finance bill means a stronger education system for Colorado, including better teacher pay, smaller class sizes, and more funding for the arts.

“We are catching up to where we should be for all public schools next year, and that’s very exciting news for Colorado kids,” he said during the bill signing.

Since 2009, lawmakers have diverted money that should go to K-12 schools to fund other priorities, a practice known as the Budget Stabilization Factor. This year’s school finance law, however, aims to eliminate that practice by the next budget year. The state has withheld over $10 billion from schools since 2009.

The constitution requires Colorado to increase funding yearly by the rate of student population growth plus inflation. The state withholding, however, has meant schools haven’t gotten what’s required by its school finance formula.

State Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who chairs the Joint Budget Committee that helps craft the budget and school finance act, said the state will also meet its obligation to fully fund its share of special education.

The state will spend $40.2 million more next year on special education, increasing total spending to about $340 million, or a 13% increase.

Polis also signed a bill that will invest more in teaching math after state and national tests showed students lost ground in that subject during the pandemic. The state will spend $25 million via three-year grants for after-school math tutoring programs that will be run by school districts, charter schools, and community groups.

The bill also will provide optional training for teachers and parents, offer evidence-based resources for math programs, and require teacher preparation programs to train prospective educators in math instruction.

Zenzinger said now that the state is on track to fully fund schools within the next budget cycle, she wants lawmakers to rethink what it costs to fully educate a student.

“It’s going to be really, really important that once we have established full funding, whether that is then adequate,” Zenzinger said.

Colorado legislature delivers on school funding, math tutoring, free college despite drama

2023-05-12T12:00:00+00:00

Colorado’s K-12 schools got a major funding increase. Younger students should get more help with math learning, and older students should have more ways to get a free college education.

And long-standing areas of education policy debate — how to more fairly distribute money among schools and how to determine what makes a good school — will get the focused attention of dedicated task forces that could recommend changes to future lawmakers.

When the 2023 Colorado General Assembly concluded its work this week, education stood out as an area of relative consensus and modest progress, in sharp contrast to heated debates over gun control, crime, housing, and tax policy that saw progressives frustrated and conservatives alike disappointed and disillusioned.

Education had its contentious moments as well. Republicans argued that a bill to expand mental health assessments in schools risked trampling on parental rights. Legislators scaled back a bill to give far more protections to students facing expulsion. A bill to promote universal screening for dyslexia, a common learning disability, never even got a hearing.

But overall, advocates across the spectrum rated education a bright spot this session.

“It is pretty remarkable when you can peel away the drama of the session,” said Jen Walmer, Colorado state director of Democrats for Education Reform. “There were real wins for kids.”

State Rep. Don Wilson, a freshman Monument Republican, said that education issues felt less politically charged.

“We did have a bunch of party-line votes, but there was good discussion about them and I really appreciate that from my fellow committee members,” he said.

With so many bills convening task forces — there also will be groups working on transportation and student discipline — the 2023 session could tee up bigger debates ahead or see the status quo win out.

“We have all these opportunities to talk about where we want our education system to go,” said Brenda Dickhoner, president and CEO of the conservative education group Ready Colorado. “We have this moment where we could choose to do better for our kids, but I’m also worried we’ll keep doing the same things.”

Here are some of the big education issues lawmakers tackled during this year’s session.

School funding

Lawmakers approved a budget and school finance act for 2023-24 that raises per-pupil spending to $10,614, up by more than $1,000 from this year. Legislators also wrote into law a promise to fund education according to constitutional requirements starting in the 2024-25 budget year. That would mark the end of the 13-year practice known as the budget stabilization factor, under which lawmakers held back more than $10 billion from K-12 schools to pay for other budget priorities.

At the same time, a last-minute property tax relief measure contains provisions that Democrats say will shore up school funding over the long-term.

“We made huge progress this year,” said Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, a Commerce City Democrat. “Buying off the B.S. factor completely is within striking distance. I think we’re going to be able to do that next year.”

Moreno said Proposition HH also would allow the state to better fund higher education by relieving budget pressures to cover K-12.

The tax package came together in the final days of the session, and Republicans balked at what they described as an excuse to undermine the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. In the House, the entire GOP caucus walked out rather than vote on the measure.

House Minority Leader Mike Lynch, in cowboy hat, gives an impromtu press conference with other House Republicans on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol after walking out of the chamber in protest.

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican, said Democrats need to prioritize education first, rather than one priority among many, and that it will be easier to hold schools accountable for outcomes when they have more resources.

“When we have 60% of our third graders not being able to read at the third grade level, 70% or so of our eighth graders, not being able to do math at the eighth grade level, we need some accountability here, and we need to start to figuring out how we’re going to get our kids educated so that they can succeed,” she said.

Lawmakers raised special education funding to meet promises made in 2006, put aside money for capital construction grants in cash-strapped districts, and promised an extra $30 million just for rural districts.

Legislators also increased funding for state-authorized charter schools and promised to fund them next year at the same level as their district-authorized counterparts, which benefit from local revenue sharing.

Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the Colorado Education Association, the state teachers union, said she hopes additional funding translates into higher teacher pay, smaller class sizes, and more mental health support for students.

Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie started the session with high hopes, including for big changes to school finance that didn’t materialize.

But lawmakers put off any major changes to the school funding formula — how the state distributes money to schools.

Some advocacy groups lamented that Colorado missed an opportunity to send more money to districts that serve more students in poverty, but Bret Miles, who leads the Colorado Association of School Executives, said the proposed changes were coming too fast and presented too many complications.

“It’s a big ship to turn,” Miles said. “It doesn’t turn on a dime.”

There’s always next year. The school finance act commissions a study to determine at what level Colorado should fund its schools and a task force to determine how that money should be distributed.

Walmer said she is optimistic the task force will be less political than a previous legislative committee. Miles said he also expects the state to be able to increase funding in future years — and a larger pie is always easier to divide in new ways.

School safety and student discipline

Lawmakers faced pressures this session to address gun violence and school safety after the horrific shooting in Uvalde and, closer to home, the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs, which raised questions about the effectiveness of Colorado’s new “red flag” law.

Two shootings outside Denver’s East High School and another inside the school building that wounded two deans and ended with the death by suicide of a student highlighted the steady toll of community gun violence.

Students repeatedly walked out of East High and rallied at the Capitol for better gun control.

East High School students rally in support of gun control at the Colorado Capitol in March after student Luis Garcia was shot and killed just outside school.

Lawmakers banned ghost guns, raised the age to purchase firearms to 21, created a three-day waiting period before gun purchasers can take possession, and added educators to the list of people who can ask that someone’s guns be temporarily removed in response to a safety threat.

Lawmakers also created an Office of School Safety to bring various services under one roof and improve coordination and communication among state agencies and school districts.

Concerns about rising youth violence hampered efforts to reform school discipline, as some educators and administrators pointed to the shooting at East as an example of why traditional schools should exclude some students. Lawmakers also decided to continue to allow children as young as 10 to be arrested and prosecuted.

Nonetheless, lawmakers passed some protections for students facing expulsion. Under House Bill 1291, hearing officers would have to learn about trauma and disability and how those can affect student behavior, and school districts will have to adopt policies that consider alternatives to expulsion.

And Senate Bill 29 would convene a task force to make recommendations to reduce disproportionate discipline.

Colorado lawmakers also banned corporal punishment in schools. The practice did not seem to be widespread in the state, but lawmakers and advocates wanted to send a message that it’s never OK to hit a child.

Student mental health

Colorado would provide more funding and support for schools to implement universal mental health screening in schools under House Bill 1003. The goal is to identify problems and provide support early, before children are in crisis.

Colorado had a high youth suicide rate before the pandemic. In 2021, doctors at Children’s Hospital Colorado declared a youth mental health emergency, and educators consistently report mental health as a top concern for students.

Lawmakers also took steps to ease severe shortages of counselors, social workers, and other mental health professionals. Senate Bill 4 will expedite licensing to work in schools.

Math instruction

House Bill 1231 would invest more than $27 million in math learning, which saw particularly concerning declines in the wake of pandemic learning disruptions. Most of the money will go to teacher training and afterschool tutoring.

Teacher training programs will be asked to make sure teachers understand best practices and recent research in math instruction, preschool teachers will be asked to do more to build early foundations, and schools facing state intervention for low academic performance will have to show what steps they’re taking to improve math learning.

Schools will be encouraged to talk to parents more and make training available to them so they can better support students at home.

But the bill stops short of the widespread mandates that have characterized Colorado’s approach to improving reading instruction.

Some advocates said they would have liked Colorado to go further, but most said they hope a voluntary approach builds buy-in and puts resources toward teachers and schools eager to do better.

College access

Few issues brought lawmakers together this session like college access.

In a bipartisan rollout in March led by Gov. Jared Polis, lawmakers outlined proposals to expand free training to students for in-demand fields at the state’s community colleges and scholarships for graduates of the Class of 2024.

House Bill 1246 opens free college for students training in early childhood, education, law enforcement, firefighting, forestry, construction, and nursing.

The $45 million program targets careers with high social value but not necessarily high salaries.

Senate Bill 205 would spend $25 million for scholarships for up to $1,500 for students in the Class of 2024 who attend college, join an apprenticeship, or train in an in-demand job.

Democrats and Republicans agreed to allow universities to enroll more out-of-state students if the institutions provide more merit aid to Colorado students.

Nursing students, Jade Prophet, left, and Cami Gardetto, work at a nursing station simulation classroom at Colorado Northwestern Community College.

Senate Bill 96 primarily impacts the University of Colorado Boulder and the Colorado School of Mines, which enroll more out-of-state students. The state requires schools to enroll 55% of their students from Colorado. Schools get to count some of those students twice if they get certain institutional aid, allowing schools to enroll more out-of-state students. The bill already signed by the governor allows schools to now double count up to 15% of its students who get more institutional aid toward the in-state enrollment cap.

Lawmakers voted mostly in lockstep to increase options for adults who never finished high school, ensuring they have a path to continue their education or get better jobs.

Senate Bill 7 would triple state spending on adult education programs to $3 million a year and will add a digital literacy requirement. The bill also would allow colleges to award high school diplomas to adults.

Senate Bill 3 would create the state’s first high school for adults. The $5 million program will support students, including paying for courses, child care, and transportation.

Teacher shortages

Lawmakers passed three laws addressing teacher shortages.

Last school year, about 440 of the 5,700 open teaching positions went unfilled for the entire year. The number of positions that end up without a teacher has also grown.

The laws this year expanded on work in 2022, when lawmakers expanded loan forgiveness programs and made it easier for retired teachers to get back into the classroom.

House Bill 1001 broadens the state’s loan forgiveness program to include principals and special service providers to apply. The state also has a shortage of special service providers.

The bill also raises the income levels eligible for the $52 million program. The program provides up to $22,000 in stipends to student teachers and $5,000 in loan forgiveness to those who stick it out. Student teachers who work in other states in some circumstances now are allowed to apply to the program.

The state also created an apprenticeship program for teacher candidates. Senate Bill 87, which has been sent to the governor, would cost more than $120,000 a year and allow undergraduate education majors to work as student teachers or substitutes while they earn their bachelor’s degree.

Kira Badberg works as a student teacher at Lowry Elementary School in Denver in 2022.

House Bill 1064 will allow teachers licensed in another state to more easily obtain a Colorado license. The Interstate Mobility Compact will allow states to share disciplinary information and require background checks. The compact only goes into place if 10 states agree to join the compact. In January, seven other states were working to approve an agreement to join the compact.

Baca-Oehlert said Senate Bill 111, which provides some workplace protections for teachers, would also help with hiring and retention. Fear of retaliation and political interference is a major reason teachers consider leaving the profession, she said.

School accountability and testing

Groups along the education politics spectrum united to support House Bill 1241, which would create a task force to recommend changes to Colorado’s school accountability system.

The school accountability system rates schools largely based on test scores, and schools that report low performance for five years or more face state intervention. Education reform advocates believe the system is imperfect but provides critical insight into how schools are serving students and where improvement is needed. Many school administrators and educators see it as punitive and overly simplistic and say it pushes schools away from art, music, career, and other educational experiences.

Bills to scale back standardized testing failed. Facing opposition, the sponsors withdrew House Bill 1239, which would have ordered the state to seek federal waivers to testing requirements and encouraged more local experimentation in assessment.

In the final days of the session, a bill to eliminate the social studies standardized test given to fourth and seventh graders also died without a vote, despite seemingly widespread support. Advocates said the release of national test scores that showed concerning drops in students’ social studies and civics knowledge led lawmakers to hesitate to end the state’s own tests in those subjects.

Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

The Colorado General Assembly met from Jan. 9 and May 8, 2023, and now it’s done. Next year, there’ll be another one.

Proposition HH could boost Colorado school funding while slowing property tax hikes — or not

2023-05-12T02:50:40+00:00

Democratic lawmakers say their last-minute property-tax relief package will also go a long way toward shoring up school funding after the legislature committed to finally meet its financial obligations to Colorado students starting next year.

Republicans — some of whom were so upset about the tax proposal they walked out rather than vote on it on the session’s final day Monday— say it’s an excuse to undermine the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights rather than make tough decisions about which government programs to prioritize.

The ballot measure’s impact on the money available for school funding would be complex — swapping locally generated property tax revenue for increased state funding in the future — and a lot would depend on future economic growth. District leaders and school finance experts say they’re watching carefully and trying to understand the effects.

The voters ultimately will decide if Proposition HH becomes law — if it survives a legal challenge to make it on the November ballot.

The proposal would cap the growth of assessed values to limit property tax increases if voters also agree to let the state keep more revenue generated by other sources. In other words, all taxpayers would give up a portion of future tax refunds in exchange for owners of homes and businesses getting some relief.

Most of the additional money would be set aside for schools and replace lost property tax revenue at the local level. Instead of growing at the rate of population plus inflation, state government could grow at the rate of population plus inflation plus 1%. That would allow the state to reap the benefits of a growing economy and ease pressure from spending caps.

If approved, the extra money the state could retain is estimated to add up to more than $500 million over the next two years. State projections are not available past the 2024-25 year, but a fiscal analysis of the bill says by 2031-32, Proposition HH would potentially allow the state to keep up to $2.2 billion over the state cap that triggers refunds to Coloradans.

“If Proposition HH passes, that is a real opportunity to increase funding to schools and a historic one at that,” said Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno, a Commerce City Democrat. “We have been underfunding schools for decades. And Proposition HH is a key piece of the solution and addressing that issue.”

State Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican, had pushed hard for lawmakers to fully fund schools this year instead of waiting, and she now believes Democrats resisted in part to justify the tax package.

“Then they wouldn’t have a reason to say why they needed your TABOR refunds,” she said.

Chris Brown, the Common Sense Institute’s vice president for policy and research, argued in a Twitter thread that Proposition HH is more of an education funding measure than a tax relief bill because over time, it would generate far more money than needed just to backfill lost local revenue.

Tracie Rainey of the Colorado School Finance Project sees it differently. She said lawmakers wanted to offer limited property tax relief to head off potential ballot measures from conservative activists but knew they would need to protect school funding, she said. The result is a cobbled-together policy whose long-term impact is unclear.

The proposal could provide important new revenue for school funding at the state level, she said, but if the campaign focuses a lot on the benefits to education, it could be harder to win support for a larger school funding measure in a year or two, she said.

Rainey is among many education advocates who think that meeting constitutional school funding requirements isn’t nearly enough. She also noted that Coloradans pay less in property taxes than do most of the rest of the nation.

Bret Miles, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives, said his members aren’t sure yet what the proposal will mean.

On the one hand, large property tax increases affect school employees and families just as they affect other members of the public — and make voters less likely to approve requests for new taxes.

“School districts don’t need to give people another reason to say no,” Miles said.

At the same time, property taxes are the most stable source of school revenue, so district chief financial officers worry about seeing them reduced.

Legislature sets a date for full education funding

Proposition HH was proposed in the final week of a contentious session that produced major gains for school funding that were hailed across the political spectrum.

Lawmakers approved a budget and school finance act for 2023-24 that raises per-pupil spending to $10,614, up more than $1,000 from this year. Legislators also wrote into law a promise to fund education according to constitutional requirements starting in the 2024-25 budget year. That would mark the end of the 13-year practice known as the budget stabilization factor, under which lawmakers held back more than $10 billion from K-12 schools to pay for other budget priorities.

“We made huge progress this year,” Moreno said. “Buying off the B.S. factor completely is within striking distance. I think we’re going to be able to do that next year.”

Lawmakers also increased funding for charter schools, special education, and school construction projects, and set aside an extra $30 million for rural schools.

But much of the increase in education funding over the last several years has come from rising local property tax revenues. Colorado sets a base budget for education funding and a per-pupil amount for each district. Whatever local taxes don’t generate, the state makes up the difference.

In recent years, the combination of a hot housing market, the repeal of the Gallagher Amendment limit on residential value growth, and a legal change that allowed the state to increase some local taxes have added hundreds of millions of locally generated dollars to school funding.

More in local tax revenue has meant less in state obligations toward that base budget. That could change if Proposition HH limits local property taxes and puts more of the burden of covering that base education budget back on the state. In turn, that raises questions about a permanent increase in school funding.

The state fiscal analysis estimates that should Proposition HH pass, Colorado would be able put an extra $124.9 million in the state education fund and would obligated to backfill $278.2 million, more than double. In 2025-26, Colorado would put $269 million in the state education fund and be obligated to backfill $350.7 million, just 30% more.

Over time, the revenue the state could keep and spend on schools would increase and could be more than the amount needed to backfill lost property taxes, the fiscal analysis says. An economic downturn could change that, as income tax and sales tax are more likely to decline than property values.

Lawmakers also worry that if they do nothing, school funding obligations will run up against TABOR caps, creating major budget problems.

Voters have rejected other requests to forego TABOR refunds to fund education. Tying it to property tax relief could sweeten the deal. To give renters a reason to vote yes, lawmakers also promised every taxpayer roughly $661 in TABOR refunds next year — but only if Proposition HH passes.

Conservatives promise to challenge Proposition HH

Michael Fields, Advance Colorado president, said his organization plans to challenge the ballot measure. He said he believes Proposition HH violates single-subject ballot rules and that the ballot’s language will need changes.

Fields’ organization has filed a ballot measure currently being challenged in the courts that would cap property tax increases at 3% and backfills revenue to fire departments, he said. The organization plans to propose other tax cut measures next year, he said. Fields already has run two successful measures cutting Colorado’s income tax rates.

Fields said Proposition HH sponsors want more money for education but are pairing that with an unpopular tax policy.

“The only reason that they’re going to the ballot is to take TABOR refunds. They don’t need to go to the ballot at all to deal with property taxes,” Fields said.

Fields said his anti-Prop HH campaign — if he can’t block it from the ballot — will focus heavily on the government asking voters to give up refunds.

“We are very much going to ask that the legislature and the governor call a special session to cap property taxes, and voters should not give up TABOR refunds,” he said.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado Democrats unveil property tax relief proposal with promise to protect school funding

2023-05-01T22:19:11+00:00

Gov. Jared Polis and Colorado legislative leaders announced a deal Monday to provide property tax relief to homeowners and businesses while limiting the hit to school funding.

Lawmakers have exactly a week to move the bill through both chambers of the Colorado General Assembly, where Republicans have slowed the movement of bills to a crawl with extended floor debates.

That bill would place Proposition HH on the November ballot. Then Colorado voters would need to give their approval.

“What really makes this proposal special is that while we can save Coloradans money on property taxes in the short and the long term, we can also at the same time protect the funding for our schools or fire districts or local governments that we all rely on every day,” said Senate President Steve Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat.

The governor’s office provided reporters with a two-page summary of the proposal. However, neither the actual bill nor the fiscal analysis was available Monday afternoon.

Proposition HH would reduce the assessment rate for both primary residences and commercial and agricultural properties. The assessment rate determines how much of a property’s value is subject to taxation.

It also would limit the annual growth of property tax collections to roughly the rate of inflation — except for school districts, which could continue to benefit from rising home values.

The proposal also would not tax the first $40,000 of home value for most homeowners. People 65 and older and disabled veterans who qualify for the so-called homestead exemption would get $140,000 of home value tax free and could retain that tax break even if they move, potentially making it easier for some people to downsize. The current homestead exemption exempts half of the first $200,000 of home value and requires the owner to have lived in their home for at least 10 years.

Without any property tax relief, the average Colorado homeowner is likely to pay about $1,068 more this year, roughly $89 more each month if they pay their taxes with their mortgage. Under the proposal, that increase would be just $401 this year, closer to $33 a month.

At the same time, voters would be asked to let the state keep some revenue above the limit set by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Under current law, state government cannot grow by more than the rate of inflation plus population, and any tax collections above that from Colorado’s strong economy must be returned to the taxpayers.

Proposition HH would let the state keep an additional 1% above that cap and use that money to backfill local governments — such as school districts, fire districts, water districts, and hospital districts — that stand to lose some property tax revenue. Voters have rejected past efforts to eliminate TABOR refunds, though this proposal is more modest than previous attempts.

In 2024-25, that would add about $167 million more to a state budget of about $40 billion. The state’s TABOR surplus — the amount that needs to be returned to taxpayers as additional refunds — would shrink from $2 billion to $1.8 billion.

This system would be in place for the next 10 years if Proposition HH were to pass.

Colorado schools are funded with a mix of local property taxes and state money. After determining how much money per student each school district should get according to a formula, the state is supposed to backfill whatever local taxes don’t generate.

But when state lawmakers decide they can’t afford to meet that obligation and still pay for other budget priorities, they have withheld money — $10 billion over the last 13 years — in a move known as the budget stabilization factor.

Voters in many school districts have also approved additional property taxes to make up for lost state revenue and cover programs like counselors, arts and music, school nurses, or higher teacher pay.

That means any discussion of property tax relief has the potential to hit school district budgets hard, even as many families and school employees struggle to keep up with rising costs. (Renters won’t be getting any relief this session after a bill to allow cities to adopt rent control or rent stabilization died in committee, though Polis said his proposal would prevent property tax increases from being passed on to renters.)

Homeowners across the state are receiving updated property valuations this week that average 33% more than they did two years ago — and as high as 60 to 70% more in some mountain communities. These valuations are based on market snapshots from summer 2022, when the state’s real estate market was at its peak. Since then, with higher interest rates, home sales have dropped and home prices have declined slightly.

In anticipation of significant increases in property values, Polis promised relief in his State of the State address. Lawmakers are also hoping to fend off a number of competing ballot measures.

By reducing assessment rates, lawmakers would reduce the amount of property value subject to local taxes.

But by exempting school districts from caps on how much tax collections can increase year over year — and by increasing the amount of money the state can use to backfill lost local dollars — the measure would soften the impact on school funding.

Polis, Fenberg, and state Sen. Chris Hansen were flanked by advocates for education and progressive fiscal policies in support of the proposal, as well as several homeowners and small business people who talked about how they were feeling the pinch of higher taxes.

Jen Walmer of Democrats for Education Reform called the proposal a “win-win for schools and communities” and Amie Baca-Oehlert, president of the Colorado Education Association, said it would help teachers and school staff whether they own or rent.

Also present were business groups such as Colorado Concern and the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

No Republican lawmakers attended the announcement. In a press release, Republicans blasted the “eleventh hour” plan and questioned why their Democratic colleagues had killed or slow-walked Republican-sponsored property tax relief plans.

“The Democrats cannot treat TABOR like an ATM machine to resolve the state’s financial issues, most of which are self-inflicted,” House Minority Leader Mike Lynch said in the press release. “The people of Colorado should be skeptical of the Governor’s hastily introduced plan with only one week left in the session.”

Lynch, a Wellington Republican, called it a “sugar-coated plan” and said it is “concerning the Governor has no PLAN B if it fails.”

Scott Wasserman, executive director of the progressive Bell Policy Center, said the proposal doesn’t solve school funding, but it does address two major concerns his organization had with other property tax relief proposals. People who own homes with lower values would benefit more than those whose homes are worth more, and funding for key services is maintained.

Leaders of the groups that represent school boards and superintendents said they appreciated that the proposal calls out the need to protect school funding, but said they’re waiting to see the actual bill before taking a position.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado special education gets long-awaited funding boost

2023-04-22T00:30:55+00:00

Tammy Johnson oversees special education services in five rural school districts in southwest Colorado as the executive director of the Uncompahgre Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

And she also puts in time as a preschool special education teacher — doing assessments, writing student education plans, supervising classroom aides — because there’s no one else to do the job.

Administrators in the districts she serves “know that I’m not available in my office to put out fires now that I have to leave my office to work in Norwood with preschool kids,” she said.

A long overdue boost to Colorado special education funding is buying Johnson some relief soon. By pooling their share of new state funding, the UnBOCES and the five school districts plan to hire an experienced preschool special education teacher at $56,000 a year.

“And oh my gosh, we might be able to pay our folks a little salary increase, enough for them to stay,” Johnson said.

The additional funding comes from the 2023-24 state budget and a related special education funding bill and enables Colorado to meet funding commitments it made in 2006 but never honored.

The formula developed back then proposed that school districts get $1,250 for every student with an individualized education plan and another $6,000 for students whose needs cost more to meet, such as students with autism or specific learning disabilities, students who are deaf or blind, those with traumatic brain injuries or who have significant emotional disabilities.

But instead of meeting that obligation, Colorado lawmakers essentially funded special education out of budgetary leftovers. As recently as 2018, Colorado was paying school districts less than a third of what lawmakers had promised for special education students.

State Sen. Rachel Zenzinger has pushed to steadily increase special education funding each of the last five years. In 2019, she argued that increasing special education funding was even more important than paying for full-day kindergarten. (Kindergarten, a top priority for Gov. Jared Polis, won out.)

Last year, Zenzinger and state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Weld County Republican, secured the first inflationary increase since 2006 for all special education students, for whom districts were reimbursed $1,750 this budget year, a 40% increase.

This year’s budget pledges $6,000 for each higher-needs student, the amount set in 2006 but never met. All told, special education funding is increasing about 13.4% to $340 million.

Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and the chair of the Joint Budget Committee, said securing funding was a matter of political will.

“Once we exposed this problem, it was really hard to not fix it,” she said. “Our children are entitled to this, and in order to be successful, we need to provide them resources.”

Colorado also has a lot more money to work with thanks to a strong economy, one-time federal dollars, and rising local property values that have taken pressure off the state education budget.

The special education funding bill passed the House and Senate with broad bipartisan support and awaits Polis’ signature. It’s sponsored by Zenzinger, Kirkmeyer, state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, and state Rep. Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican.

The extra funding still leaves school districts on the hook for about two-thirds of more than $1 billion in total costs to educate students with disabilities. The federal government promised back in the 1970s to pick up 40% of the cost but only reimburses school districts about 14% of their real costs, with the state picking up about 20%.

Lucinda Hundley, who heads the Consortium of Directors of Special Education, said school districts are grateful for the additional money, but they also need lawmakers to understand it’s a fraction of the cost. School districts are legally required to provide special education services, so unreimbursed costs come out of the general education budget.

A study group last year decided against making major changes to how Colorado funds special education, but Hundley said she hopes the state takes another look at how much it invests in special education and considers what a fair share would be between the state and districts.

Rob Gould, a Denver special education teacher and president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association, said low funding has exacerbated a shortage of special education teachers and special service providers such as speech language pathologists, occupational therapists, and school psychologists.

“We do not have enough teachers or support staff to serve our students the way they deserve. At every turn, special education educators rise to the occasion, but the state’s lack of investment has exacerbated the educator shortage,” he told lawmakers this month.

Gould described one teacher who quit after her caseload rose to 40 students because she was the only special education teacher in her building.

“She left the profession entirely so she could spend time with her kids on the weekend,” he said.

Staffing shortages and high workloads sometimes mean students don’t get the services they’re owed. In just one recent example, the Colorado Department of Education found that Denver violated federal requirements by failing to provide speech therapy to more than 1,000 young students.

Colorado’s educator shortage survey found that 17% of open special service provider positions went unfilled last school year, compared to just 8% of classroom teacher openings. Year after year, special education teachers are among the hardest to hire.

Johnson, the BOCES director, cobbles together services uses independent contractors and virtual appointments. If money were no object and she could offer competitive salaries to go with sweeping views of the San Juan Mountains, services would look a little different.

“I would have a psychologist in every building,” she said. “I would have a social worker in every building. I would have a speech pathologist in person. I would have release time for my teams to plan. If we could meet some of our students’ needs proactively rather than reactively, it would make a difference.”

In voting to move the bill out of the House Education Committee, state Rep. Mary Young, a Greeley Democrat, said she started working as a special education teacher before there was even a federal law requiring that schools serve students with disabilities. In all those decades, special education had never been adequately funded, she said.

“The people who do special ed do it because their heart is in it,” Johnson said. “Growing up, my brother couldn’t come to school with us because they didn’t have a program for him. That’s why I’m doing this.

“But I’m in my 27th year and funding hasn’t come close to catching up, and it’s a travesty that we have to do it on the backs of general education students who are also struggling.”

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Amended Colorado school finance bill promises to fully fund K-12 within two years

2023-04-20T04:21:40+00:00

This might be the last year that Colorado lawmakers hold back money from K-12 schools to fund other budget priorities.

Legislators have toyed with the idea of fully funding Colorado schools several times in recent years, but always held back amid economic uncertainty. While Colorado’s constitution requires school funding to go up each year by the rate of population and inflation, lawmakers haven’t met that requirement since the start of the Great Recession.

Since 2009, Colorado has withheld more than $10 billion from its schools.

Now the school finance act that passed unanimously out of the Senate Education Committee Wednesday includes a provision that would require the state to fully fund K-12 schools starting in the 2024-25 budget year.

The bill also contains a provision to fund state-authorized charter schools at a level similar to other schools starting in 2024-5. District-authorized charter schools get a cut of locally raised tax dollars. State-authorized charter schools do not.

Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican and bill sponsor, called these provisions the “within-striking-distance amendments.” Lawmakers could still abandon these promises next year — particularly if economic conditions change — but moving to write them into law is a significant step.

The school finance act also will include even more money for 2023-24 than originally proposed after an impassioned appeal from Weld County Republican state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer.

“It’s time for the state Senate and this General Assembly to let the governor and the rest of the state know, no more B.S., no more balancing the budget on the backs of students,” she said. “We’re going to set a priority, and it’s called education.”

Kirkmeyer, who serves on the Joint Budget Committee, pointed out that the state education fund has nearly $1.3 billion, and that Democrats have funded a host of new programs since they took control of the legislature in 2018.

“We pay for people’s bus passes, we pay for people’s utility bills, we pay for people’s rent, we pay for hygiene products, we pay for business licenses, we pay for health insurance,” she said. “We darn well ought to pay for education and put our children first.”

The money to fully fund K-12 education would come from a mix of savings in the state education fund and new revenue. Colorado has so much money in the state education fund because lawmakers slashed school funding in 2020 in anticipation of a COVID-related recession that never materialized. When revenues came in above projections, lawmakers socked much of the money away.

State Sen. Janice Marchman, a Loveland Democrat and teacher, found Kirkmeyer’s argument persuasive. She pointed to widespread teacher shortages, salaries that haven’t kept pace with inflation, students still recovering from learning disruptions, unmet mental health needs in schools, and safety fears. Meanwhile, federal pandemic funding will expire in 2024.

“There is no reason for our state to have a rainy day fund if we don’t recognize that we’re in a rainy day,” she said.

The additional money means the withholding for 2023-24 — known as the budget stabilization factor — would be just $141 million or 1.5% out of a more than $9 billion K-12 budget.

A decade ago, lawmakers withheld 18% of the money that should have gone to schools.

State Sen. Rhonda Fields, an Aurora Democrat, recalled that early in her legislative service, funding was so limited schools were talking about charging students to ride the bus. The prospect of eliminating the budget stabilization factor feels like entering a final frontier.

“I’m looking at Star Trek,” she said. “We can go to places we’ve never gone before. We can meet new people. We can fund our schools.”

At the same time, she said state government has a lot of responsibilities beyond education.

Joint Budget Committee Chair Rachel Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat and bill sponsor, cautioned lawmakers that education funding commitments will continue to rise and that covering costs next year could require drawing as much as $415 million from the state education fund.

Analysts warn of a looming structural deficit, when growth in state spending, including on mandatory programs, will run up against caps imposed by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights or against a recession.

Colorado is also in the process of developing a new way to measure student poverty and may change how it distributes money among schools, changes that may require more funding to avoid hurting some districts.

Meanwhile, funding Charter School Institute schools similarly to other schools is expected to cost more than $42 million. Lundeen said it’s an issue of fundamental fairness. State-authorized charter school students include new immigrants, pregnant and parenting teens, and other students who need significant support, yet these schools have had less money per-pupil.

But unlike the local revenue that districts share with their charters, there’s no dedicated funding source for state-authorized charters.

The school finance act still needs to pass the full Senate and the House and could see yet more changes. It’s the only bill other than the budget that lawmakers must pass before they adjourn May 8.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school finance act boosts K-12 spending, steers clear of formula changes

2023-04-19T12:00:00+00:00

Colorado’s school finance act would boost K-12 funding next year to more than $9 billion — $150 million more than described in the recently finalized 2023-24 budget and a 7.5% increase from this year.

“The change to school finance is historic,” said Joint Budget Committee Chair Rachel Zenzinger. Average per-pupil spending is proposed to reach $10,579, a 10% increase from this year.

The bill could set Colorado on the path to fully funding its schools according to constitutional requirements by the 2024-25 school year. Zenzinger said an amendment will lay out a two-year process to eliminate the practice of diverting K-12 dollars to other priorities, known as the budget stabilization factor.

The school finance act would also set aside money for rural districts and those with limited property wealth and give more assistance to charter schools authorized by the state, which miss out on local revenue-sharing.

But the school finance act also kicks the can down the road — for at least one more year — on any bigger changes to how Colorado distributes money to K-12 schools.

Lawmakers on a special school finance committee had proposed in November to take on a major rewrite of Colorado’s school funding formula. Instead, the committee concluded its work after five years without recommending changes to the General Assembly.

Most districts opposed changing how the state distributes money to schools without significantly increasing the overall education budget. That made a formula rewrite a heavy political lift in a session already consumed with contentious fights over gun control, housing policy, and access to abortion and gender-affirming care.

But Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who also served on the school finance committee, saw another opportunity in the school finance act — an annual bill separate from the budget that dictates how education money gets distributed.

Zenzinger had proposed using the school finance act to tweak the formula to send more money to rural districts and small urban and suburban districts and to send less money to large districts serving better-off communities.

By taking money from the state education fund, which functions somewhat like a savings account, lawmakers could have ensured every district saw an increase, Zenzinger said. But districts that traditionally have been disadvantaged by the current funding formula would have come out ahead.

“That was a proposal we put on the table, but the K-12 lobby rejected it,” Zenzinger said. “They were just really nervous about making a permanent change.”

Instead, the school finance act proposes to keep the existing funding formula and convene a new task force to take on the unfinished work of the school finance committee.

School funding formula widely seen as unfair

Colorado’s 1994 school funding formula sets a base for per-pupil funding and then makes adjustments based on factors such as how many students live in poverty or are learning English, the size of a district, and the cost of living.

But the formula gives far more weight to cost of living than it does to student needs, with the effect that wealthier districts often get more money than those serving high-poverty communities.

There is widespread agreement that this formula is unfair — and also widespread resistance to change.

“Everyone is dealing with staff shortages, everyone is dealing with inflation and the impact of that on our staff,” said Bret Miles, executive director of the Colorado Association of School Executives. “This was not the time to say it would be OK to have some districts not get as much of an increase.”

While per-pupil spending is going up, many school districts are losing students and face tough budget decisions even with more state funding. Districts like Jeffco Public Schools, which Zenzinger represents, benefit from the cost-of-living factor and are using those dollars to ease the budget hit from lower enrollment.

Miles praised Zenzinger and the other bill sponsors for hearing the concerns of school districts and changing course. There’s less than three weeks to go before the legislature adjourns, not enough to work through the implications of any changes, he said. Meanwhile, lawmakers still may take up property tax changes this session that would leave districts with fewer local dollars.

Some advocates, though, see a missed opportunity.

“I was hoping they would do something more interesting with $150 million than pump it into a formula that everyone knows is bad,” said Leslie Colwell of the Colorado Children’s Campaign.

Both Miles and Colwell said the task force may make progress where the committee could not.

The committee was made up of legislators, while the task force would be made up of school administrators, educators, advocates, and finance experts. And it would have a narrow charge, to recommend specific changes to the funding formula and to study how much Colorado should spend on K-12 education, known as an adequacy study.

“It’s a scary question to ask because you may get back a number that says, ‘Wow, we have a long way to go,’” Miles said.

Budget stabilization factor could be be phased out

Colorado’s constitution requires that school funding increase every year by the rate of inflation plus population. But every year since the Great Recession, lawmakers have withheld money to pay for other budget priorities. This withholding, known as the budget stabilization factor, adds up to more than $10 billion.

This budget year, lawmakers withheld $321 million, about 3.7% of base K-12 spending. The school finance act proposes a $171 million withholding for the 2023-24 budget year, less than 2% of K-12 spending.

Zenzinger said she plans to ask for an amendment that would eliminate the withholding entirely next year. Gov. Jared Polis had called for a three-year plan.

The school finance act also would set aside $30 million for rural schools to mitigate their higher costs and smaller student populations. Colorado rural schools have received similar annual payments since 2017.

Zenzinger said her intention is for this to be the last year with a “one-time” rural allowance and that going forward rural schools will get more through the funding formula.

The school finance act would put $23.4 million into a matching fund to help school districts with low property wealth get more benefit from local property tax increases known as mill levy override. The fund was created last year and seeded with $10 million.

The school finance act also allocates:

$2.5 million to charter schools authorized by the state Charter School Institute to make up for local tax revenue that isn’t shared. Coupled with money pledged in the budget, these schools will get an extra $27 million next year.
$1.1 million for universal screening to identify gifted and talented students
$500,000 for school districts to translate draft versions of individualized education plans or IEPs into parents’ home languages.
$300,000 to reimburse school districts for costs associated with replacing Native American mascots.

The school finance act gets its first hearing Wednesday in the Senate Education Committee.

The school finance act and the budget are the only two pieces of legislation the Colorado General Assembly must pass before adjournment.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

State budget clears Colorado Senate, school funding TBD

2023-03-30T22:00:00+00:00

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Thursday morning the Colorado State Senate signed off on a nearly $39 billion state budget without answering the big question Colorado educators and advocates want to know.

How much money will K-12 schools get?

Colorado’s constitution requires that K-12 spending increase every year by the rate of population plus inflation, but since the Great Recession, lawmakers have clawed back money for other priorities. This is the infamous budget stabilization factor, or B.S. factor.

This year the withholding was $321 million out of more than $8 billion in education spending. The proposed budget holds that constant for the next fiscal year. Another $321 million that won’t go to Colorado classrooms.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Joint Budget Committee Chair Rachel Zenzinger said the B.S. factor almost certainly will be smaller than outlined in the budget, but the changes will happen in the school finance act.

The state budget and the school finance act are the only two pieces of legislation the General Assembly must pass before adjournment.

In past years, lawmakers have left a placeholder in the budget to reduce the B.S. factor. This year that’s not necessary because lawmakers likely will draw from the state education fund. Right now there’s a lot of money in this fund, but that money won’t be replenished easily once it’s spent, especially if there’s a recession.

Using the state education fund is like using a savings account to pay for a new monthly bill. Short-term, it works. But the state’s obligated to keep funding education at whatever level it sets this year, plus inflation. Lawmakers will be weighing their risk tolerance against the urgency of increasing school funding, especially as federal pandemic relief money is running out.

Meanwhile, Republicans have kept up the pressure on Democrats.

Senate Minority Leader Paul Lundeen offered four unsuccessful amendments on the Senate floor to eliminate the B.S. factor entirely in this year’s budget using different combinations of reserves and expected new tax money.

Lundeen said lawmakers have failed to fully fund schools even as the state budget has nearly doubled since 2009.

“We’ve added 167 additional state programs,” he said. And unlike education, he said, “they’re not constitutionally mandated. They’re just good ideas that we show up to the party with as legislators.”

Zenzinger called Lundeen’s amendments “smoke and mirrors,” and said budget committee members are working on how to fund schools responsibly.

“It’s not because we don’t care about education, it’s not because we don’t want to properly fund education, it’s not because we don’t like teachers, and it’s not because we don’t see this as an essential function of government,” she said.

As written, Colorado’s $38.5 billion proposed budget would increase per student K-12 spending by 8.4% — an increase that barely keeps pace with inflation — and gives a boost to higher education while also allowing public colleges and universities to increase tuition by as much as 5%, the highest increase in the last five years.

The Senate did adopt a few amendments this week that touch on education, including $14 million for two grant programs that would pay for behavioral health care professionals and school counselors.

What’s next? Those amendments will get stripped out before the budget goes to the House, where representatives will start fresh and put their own stamp on the budget next week.

Then the Joint Budget Committee decides the actual form of the budget before sending it back to both chambers for a final vote. Charged with producing a balanced budget, they usually reject all amendments but occasionally include a few that have widespread support.

Four-day school week hurt housing market, academics in the 27J district, study suggests

2023-02-07T17:48:11+00:00

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Homeowners in the 27J school district might have been better off paying a higher property tax rather than allowing the district to adopt a four-day school week, a new study suggests.

Preliminary results of the study, which has not yet been peer reviewed, suggest that home prices suffered and student achievement in the district may have dropped. Teacher retention, which the district cited as the main reason for moving to the four-day school week, may also have decreased, according to the study.

The 27J school district, which serves more than 22,600 students this year, is based north of Denver, covering Brighton and parts of Commerce City and Thornton. Leaders rolled out the four-day school week in the fall of 2018, after having failed a sixth time to pass a local tax increase to pay teachers more.

District Superintendent Chris Fiedler disputes the findings, citing higher-than-ever graduation rates and lower overall teacher turnover.

The authors of the study acknowledge there were limitations in the way they examined student achievement and teacher retention pieces. They didn’t want to look at years affected by COVID, so they only examined student achievement data through the 2019-20 school year. For teacher retention data they examined data through the 2020-21 school year. So it’s possible the findings were short-term impacts, said Frank James Perrone, one of the study’s authors.

When it comes to student achievement, research would ideally track individual students, said Perrone, assistant professor of educational leadership at Indiana University. Since the researchers couldn’t access that level of data, it’s unknown if some of the findings could have been a result of higher-performing students leaving the district.

The research is more comprehensive and based on more data when it comes to the housing findings. While housing prices in 27J haven’t dropped, home values stopped growing at the same rate relative to its most comparable neighboring district. Therefore, homeowners lost out on growth that they likely would have seen without the change, according to the study.

The researchers calculated those losses compared to the cost of paying for the mill levy override and found that, financially, conservative estimates suggest homeowners would have been better off approving the tax measure.

“These results suggest the decision to adopt a 4-day school week in a metropolitan setting should not be taken lightly,” the study states.

Voters should be aware of possible tradeoffs when voting against local tax measures that can drive a district to switch to a four-day school week, Perrone said.

Teacher retention was goal of shorter school week

In years past, 27J has made other drastic changes as a result of the failure to pass local tax measures to increase its revenue. For instance, when the district faced overcrowding and was unable to build new schools, it had to move the high schools to a split schedule from 2015 to 2018. Some students were on campus in the mornings and some attended school later in the day to reduce the amount of people in the school buildings at one time.

This past November, in the eighth attempt to pass a mill levy override, 27J finally succeeded. The measure will allow the district to raise teacher salaries starting this fall. That, together with more funding from the governor’s proposed budget, could get starting pay to $50,000, Fiedler said, but that’s still lower than in many metro area districts.

Fiedler believes that the four-day school week, while an effective incentive for some teachers, is not as effective when the pay gap with other districts grows too wide. He said he hopes next year’s raises will make his district attractive again.

“It is a total tradeoff,” Fiedler said. “That gap eventually becomes so large that it’s not worth the tradeoff.”

Kathey Ruybal, president of the teachers union in the district, said teachers and staff overwhelmingly support the four-day school week. Some staff members opposed to the change left in the first year, but staff who leave now leave because of low pay, she said

According to state data, turnover rates for teachers in 27J have dropped to 14.6% — a lower rate than many neighboring districts. And when compared to the nearly 17% rate in 2017, it’s a drop of 14%. But other nearby districts had steeper drops in turnover rates in the same time period.

For the study, the researchers went deeper, using staff-level data from the state to look at years of experience, salary, and whether teachers had advanced degrees. Teachers with between 5 and 15 years of experience were 5% less likely to return to the district after the four-day switch.

“We can only see experience level, but we don’t have effectiveness ratings,” Perrone said. “It’s possible they kept the best teachers.”

Perrone, who worked on the study with Adam D. Nowak of West Virginia University and Patrick S. Smith of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said he hopes other researchers will take another look in the future at how the four-day switch changes the workforce in the long term. How districts use the fifth off day for professional development or whether that gives teachers more planning time might change the culture of the workplace or encourage more effectiveness, he said.

In 27J, teachers have training on one free Monday each month. A second Monday each month is used for principal training and district meetings. That means principals and school leaders rarely have to leave schools for meetings when students are in class, Fiedler said.

Ruybal said she doesn’t think the four-day school week has had much impact on culture or planning time. However, additional planning time during the four-day school week that her union won in negotiations is helpful, she said.

Findings match other research on 4-day school weeks

Traditionally, most four-day school districts have served rural communities. Recently, more large, urban districts have made the switch, including the 14,000-student Independence School District neighboring Kansas City, Missouri. But research that isn’t focused on rural districts is limited — making this study significant as researchers look to better understand the impacts.

Paul Thompson, an associate professor of economics at Oregon State University who reviewed the study, said the academic findings echo what research has found elsewhere: Academic achievement generally declines when schools switch to a four-day week.

The finding, he says, seems related to how much time is actually lost. In districts that make up most of the instructional time, the decline is smaller or not there.

In 27J, Superintendent Fiedler said, the district continued to meet the state’s instructional time requirements by lengthening the school day and eliminating early release or other time off for planning.

Research on four-day school weeks has started looking at impacts beyond test scores, Thompson said.

“Most educational interventions are happening within the schools,” Thompson said. “But there’s many more outcomes that can be affected by this choice.”

Previous research, for example, found an increase in juvenile delinquency in Colorado communities with four-day school weeks, perhaps because teenagers spent more time unsupervised. Looking at the impact on housing makes sense, Thompson said.

Oded Gurantz, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, said other research finds that educational policies can have a quick and observable impact on the local housing market.

In the case of 27J’s four-day school week, families may have to consider the cost of child care on the fifth day. Local realtors, including Alan Strange, said they haven’t noticed potential home buyers talking about the four-day week recently, but did notice it when the district rolled out a split schedule for the high school.

With more families working from home since the start of COVID, Strange said, the impact may have since dissipated.

Fiedler said that when the district first moved to four-day weeks, about 1,000 families signed up for the district’s child care option for about $30 per day. Now, only about 300 families use the child care option. In 2020, after the start of COVID, some government agencies including the Adams County government offices, moved to a matching four-day work schedule.

Fiedler agrees that moving to a four-day school week is not a decision to be made lightly.

It was the necessary and right thing to do for his district, he said to Chalkbeat. “We had to do something,” Fiedler said.

But when other school district leaders ask whether he would still make the switch if he had the money to just pay teachers more, his answer is no.

Read the full paper here:

Yesenia Robles is a reporter for Chalkbeat Colorado covering K-12 school districts and multilingual education. Contact Yesenia at yrobles@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado school finance committee backs special ed increase, won’t vote on new formula

2023-01-27T19:44:18+00:00

Colorado would fund special education at the levels lawmakers promised back in 2006 under legislation recommended unanimously Friday by a special committee on school finance.

The special education bill was the only one recommended this year by the school finance committee, which originally convened six years ago with the goal of rewriting Colorado’s decades-old school funding formula. House Speaker Julie McCluskie said she’s still hoping to present a new formula to lawmakers outside the committee process.

The special education bill would reimburse districts $6,000 for every student with what’s known as a Tier B disability that requires more intensive support for students to be successful in school. These include dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders, developmental delays, deafness, blindness, emotional disabilities, and traumatic brain injuries, among others.

The bill also calls for Tier B funding to increase every year by the rate of inflation.

Both the federal and state governments require school districts to provide a “free and appropriate” education to all students, including those with disabilities, but they pay just a fraction of the cost. That won’t change with this bill.

School districts would still bear about two-thirds of the additional cost of providing special education services, but a few years ago, the state was paying less than half of what it had promised.

Pushed by state Sen. Rachel Zenzinger, state funding for special education has increased dramatically. A bill last year raised the amount provided to all special education students to $1,750 from $1,250 and required funding to increase by inflation, along with increasing Tier B reimbursements.

This money is on top of the average of $9,559 that goes to schools for each Colorado student.

Zenzinger, an Arvada Democrat who chairs the Joint Budget Committee and serves on the interim committee on school finance, sounded a note of caution even as she signed on as a prime sponsor of the funding increase bill.

“We’ll put it out there as what we’d like to see, and we’ll see what’s available to us in the budget,” she said.

Lawmakers said increasing special education funding reduces the amount districts have to divert from general education needs to meet their legal obligations to students with disabilities.

“You don’t want to pit students against each other,” state Rep. Cathy Kipp, a Fort Collins Democrat, said. “When you provide more funding for special education, it helps all students.”

The bill would add $40.2 million in special education funding to next year’s budget, bringing the total to at least $340 million, a 13% increase. The amount could be more, depending on how lawmakers handle requirements to respond to inflation, or the bill could get scaled back in budget negotiations.

Colorado schools spend more than $1 billion a year on special education services.

Colorado lawmakers are also under pressure to increase base operational budgets for school districts and provide more for transportation, gifted and talented students, and other needs. And once they commit to more spending, state law obligates them to maintain that level and increase it by inflation.

Legislative analysts and lawmakers alike have raised concerns about the long-term sustainability of education spending — even as Colorado funds its schools below the national average and withholds constitutionally required school funding for other budget purposes.

The special education bill, sponsored by state Sens. Zenzinger and Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican, along with state Reps. Kipp and Lisa Frizell, a Castle Rock Republican, will be the only bill to come out of the Interim Committee on School Finance this session.

With its charter expiring, the committee met for the last time Friday after six years of operating in various iterations. The committee was not presented with a new school funding formula as envisioned back in November or as envisioned when the committee was conceived back in 2017.

McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat who also chairs the school finance committee, said she still hopes to bring forward a formula rewrite this year, but the issue was too complex to work out by the end of the month, the deadline for special committees to propose legislation.

There is broad agreement that Colorado’s school funding formula is unfair and out of date, but settling on a new formula without a substantial increase in school funding has proved politically challenging. No school district wants to get less money than it gets now.

Polis has called for $100 million to be set aside in the state budget to ease the transition to a new funding formula.

Zenzinger said the many changes the committee has made over the years set the stage for a larger rewrite. Lawmakers previously increased special education funding, added funding for English learners to the existing finance formula, and convened a group to develop a new at-risk measure to better identify students living in poverty and facing other challenges outside of school.

House Minority Leader Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican who has worked on school finance issues for years, said the special education bill was a step in the right direction, but he called for lawmakers to go further and create a formula that addresses student needs according to a wide range of characteristics.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Gov. Jared Polis promises to fully fund Colorado schools within four years

2023-01-17T23:33:57+00:00

In Tuesday’s State of the State speech, Gov. Jared Polis promised to fully fund K-12 schools within four years — something Colorado hasn’t done since the Great Recession — even as he also promised major property tax relief and further reductions in the state income tax rate.

Polis also touted the launch of universal preschool this coming August, asked lawmakers to ask voters to keep more money from nicotine sales to expand preschool, pledged support to help high school students earn college credit, and highlighted efforts to boost students’ math skills.

The speech was Polis’ first State of the State of his second term as governor. Colorado will celebrate 150 years as a state in 2026, the last full year of his second term.

In a speech that leaned heavier on housing and health care than on education, Polis framed his goals as creating more opportunity for all by the time the state marks that milestone.

“At 150, I want to see an education system that prepares every child and learners of all ages for success,” Polis said.

In an interview, Polis said he would only support tax cuts that wouldn’t reduce overall state revenue and that his proposals depend on an ongoing strong economy.

“If we’re going to fund our schools and cut taxes at the same time, the overall economy needs to do well,” he said.

Polis included many of the education policies described in the speech in his recent budget requests, including new training opportunities to help workers get in-demand jobs and more money for afterschool tutoring.

Here are a few education highlights from the State of the State speech.

Polis promises to fully fund K-12 schools

What he said: “I am proud to submit a proposal to buy down the budget stabilization factor to its lowest level ever and set our state on a path to finally eliminate it altogether during my second term, fulfilling our state’s commitment to our schools.”

What it means: Colorado’s constitution requires school funding to go up every year by the rate of population growth and inflation, but every year, lawmakers withhold hundreds of millions that should go to schools to help fund other priorities. The practice known as the budget stabilization factor started in 2009-10 and added up to more than $10 billion.

Eliminating the budget stabilization factor is a longtime priority for the state’s education advocates. Lawmakers have reduced the annual withholding but never eliminated it. Last year they held back $321 million out of more than $5 billion in state K-12 funding.

In a budget letter sent Tuesday, Polis proposed a $201 million withholding and saving money to allow for more so-called buy-downs in future years.

In an interview, Polis acknowledged doing so depends on a continuing strong economy. Republicans believe schools could be funded at a higher level if Democrats scaled back other programs.

Colorado schools would get more money per student

What Polis said: “For K-12 learners, I’m proposing in my supplemental and budget amendment package today that we raise per pupil funding by an additional $925 — or an additional $20,000 for [individual] Colorado classrooms every year … Districts can use these funds to increase pay, like the Lake County School District that raised teacher pay by 16% in just one year with a major bump for staff … Or how Colorado’s two largest school districts are starting their teachers at just over $50,000 per year. That would have been unheard of a decade ago.

“These new funds can also support smaller class sizes, revive extracurriculars, or fund mental health support for our students.”

What it means: The governor said in November he wants $861 more per student. Now he’s calling for an additional $64. That money would bring per-pupil allocations to $10,485.

Many Colorado school districts are losing enrollment, so the bottom line would vary from district to district. The legislature could also send more — or less — money to schools than called for in Polis’ budget request.

In the budget letter, Polis said higher per-pupil funding is possible in part because Colorado has 1,600 fewer students this year than expected and is likely to have 2,700 fewer next school year.

School districts can spend the money how they choose, and many Colorado school districts have raised pay. At the same time, inflation has eaten into the value of those raises. A recent study found the price of housing — another priority for Polis and lawmakers — has risen far faster than educator wages.

Property tax relief is a top priority

What Polis said: “We must work together to pass a long-term property tax relief package that reduces residential and commercial property taxes and creates a long-term mechanism to protect homeowners from being priced out of their homes, while protecting school funding.”

What it means: Property taxes, school funding, and the state budget are closely related. Colorado sets per-pupil funding at the state level and backfills whatever local property tax revenues don’t cover. Higher local property taxes means K-12 school funding can go up without putting as much pressure on the state budget.

Last year’s $700 million property tax relief deal was one reason lawmakers held back from fully funding schools then. The deal meant the state needed to backfill more dollars for districts.

Senate President Stephen Fenberg, a Boulder Democrat, said he doesn’t expect a cut to property tax rates to conflict with the governor’s call to increase school funding. Property values have soared and it leaves room for the state to make cuts while still bringing in enough for K-12.

Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie, a Dillon Democrat, said lawmakers need to find ways to both fund education and provide property tax relief.

“We rank in the bottom of the United States, depending on how you slice that metric, as far as funding, and yes, we have to provide property tax relief,” she said. “We have to be talking about both and what that path is forward.”

Free preschool program could serve more children

What he said: “Free preschool will save families at least $6,000 per year and give our children the best possible start in life. This is a monumental achievement and today is the first day families can apply to enroll their children. I’m so excited to share that more than 4,300 Colorado families have already started applying …

“I’m calling for the legislature to refer a ballot measure that would allow Colorado to utilize excess Prop EE funds for preschool, just as the legislature did on a bipartisan basis for excess marijuana funds in 2015. This would give voters the choice to support more services for more children and help lower-income families enroll their child in full-day preschool.”

What it means: The parent application for Colorado’s new free preschool program opened just hours before Polis’ speech.

The program uses money from Proposition EE, a voter-approved nicotine tax, to pay for at least 10 to 15 hours a week of tuition-free preschool for all 4-year-olds statewide, with many students eligible for 30 hours of free preschool. Some 3-year-olds will be eligible for 10 hours as well.

But excess tax collection must be sent back to taxpayers. A ballot measure would ask voters to ensure all of the money the state collects, even above the limit of the 2020 ballot measure, would go to preschool. That could allow the state to pay for more hours and open seats to more 3-year-olds.

Student math skills suffered during pandemic learning

What he said: “The last few years have been tough for our K-12 learners and educators, and those challenges are reflected in test scores, particularly math. To help improve achievement, we are proposing new investments in high-quality math curricula and training to ensure that our educators have the support they need to help all our students thrive. And we are increasing our commitment to high-quality before- and after-school programming.”

What it means: Student math scores declined since before the pandemic, showing bigger decreases than reading. The governor has proposed a one-time $25 million for after-school math tutoring and $3 million for new curriculum. Legislators have also proposed improving teacher training and educating parents on how to help kids with math.

The state has made a long-term effort to boost reading skills, but no such effort exists for math. And so far, no one has proposed that kind of systemic reform or tracking of student skill in math.

Polis proposes more training for workers, free college credit

What Polis said: “The reality is that today’s economy demands access to quick skill acquisition, whether that is a one-, two- or four-year degree, professional training, an apprenticeship, or on-the-job training. We are going to jump-start access to training to help more Coloradans be career ready, earn more, and power our economy.”

What it means: Colorado has a worker shortage. For every two jobs available, there’s only one qualified worker. Colorado also has many adults who could benefit from workforce training and fill those in-demand jobs.

The governor would spend about $70 million to provide free career training in in-demand fields and scholarships to students. The money would help about 35,000 recent graduates and older adults get training in the most in-demand fields like advanced manufacturing, education, law enforcement, and nursing fields.

Bureau Chief Erica Meltzer covers education policy and politics and oversees Chalkbeat Colorado’s education coverage. Contact Erica at emeltzer@chalkbeat.org.

Colorado higher ed leaders to lawmakers: Funding isn’t keeping up with inflation

2023-01-13T00:41:41+00:00

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Colorado’s college and university leaders said their schools need more money than proposed by the governor, and pleaded with the legislature Thursday to boost spending on higher education.

In a joint letter, the 15 higher education leaders said they need at least $144 million more to keep up with inflation, pay competitive wages, and provide crucial support to students.

It’s the second year in a row that college and university presidents have banded together to demand more funding. It represents a new, more vocal approach in a state where higher education often takes a back seat to K-12 advocacy — and one that was successful last year.

The Monday letter asks for double what Gov. Jared Polis requested for their operations in the 2023-24 year. They also want to keep the ability to raise tuition by up to 4%. College and university leaders said the additional funding would help cover inflation and support students of color and those who are low-income.

Polis has proposed increasing college and university budgets by $70 million for operations and $16 million for student financial aid. College leaders say that amount is not enough to keep up with inflation.

Colorado ranks 49th, down from 45th, in spending per student, according to a State Higher Education Executive Officers Association report from last year. The letter to the state says that “Colorado is still approximately $900 million below the average funding of our national peers.”

The association report looks at the 2021 budget year, when the state slashed higher education funding and backfilled those cuts with federal funding. The state increased funding this budget year, but Colorado continues to trail the majority of states.

“Greater state investment in higher education has never been more important as we seek to meet critical state workforce shortages, while also keeping tuition in check and addressing inflationary pressures on our operations,” the letter from the state’s university and college leaders says.

During the Thursday Joint Budget Hearing on higher education budgets, state lawmakers asked how tuition increases would impact students. Colorado Mesa University President John Marshall said that when schools increase tuition, they also increase financial support for students who need it the most. Colorado public university students already carry one of the highest tuition burdens in the nation and also face rising inflation.

Marshall said schools risk losing administrative and instructional staff if the state doesn’t provide more aid.

“We’ve dealt with double-digit increases in utilities, diesel gas, and all the various challenges you’re dealing with both in your personal budgets and here in the state budget,” Marshall said to lawmakers.

While the governor crafts a budget that reflects his priorities, the six lawmakers on the Joint Budget Committee write the budget presented to lawmakers for approval each spring.

In asking for more money, colleges and university leaders outlined their role in training workers for in-demand jobs.

More and more, state leaders have expressed worry that the state isn’t keeping up. Colorado has two job openings for every qualified worker, according to state economic data. The state’s colleges and universities train those workers to meet the demand, the letter says.

In addition to operational funding for colleges, Polis has proposed $70 million to provide free training, mostly at community colleges, and financial aid for schooling and apprenticeships to connect students to high-demand fields such as health care, teaching, law enforcement, fire fighting, construction, and advanced manufacturing. The governor wants the money to help educate more than 35,000 students.

Colorado Mountain College President Carrie Besnette Hauser told the Joint Budget Committee the state should allow students to use money from the governor’s training program for housing, especially in expensive mountain areas.

Joe Garcia, Colorado Community College System chancellor, said he’s grateful the governor is recommending more money to support job training programs, but more is needed.

Fewer older adults and students of color have enrolled at two-year colleges since the start of the pandemic. They’re groups in need of training.

“We have gained a lot of ground in this state over the last decade. We’re losing ground now,” Garcia said. “We think that by working together, and when supported by the state, we can again begin to reach those students — and those students will ultimately help our state’s economy.”