… died at the hands of the state Senate GOP in its kill committee on Monday, Chalkbeat Colorado reports this morning. Before being substantially amended at the Monday hearing, the proposed reform would have reined in school suspensions and expulsions of early-elementary kids and public-school preschoolers.

In a 3-2, party-line vote, the GOP majority on the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee dispatched the bipartisan House Bill 1210 — co-sponsored in the upper chamber by fellow Republican Sen. Kevin Priola of Henderson — after rural school chiefs testified that it encroached on their authority.

Chalkbeat’s Nicholas Garcia explains:

The bill hit an unexpected late roadblock when rural school leaders voiced opposition to the bill.

On Monday, two rural superintendents said that the bill violated their local control and that more mental health resources for students was a better solution.

“I think what it comes down for me, more than anything, is that we have continually eroded away local control and the authority of our local school boards to make the decisions they need to make,” said Rob Sanders, superintendent of the Buffalo School District in Merino.

Garcia also noted this factor, as he reported a few days ago:

Rural superintendents also have claimed that early childhood suspensions are a Front Range problem. A Chalkbeat story last week, however, reported that rural school districts also suspended boys — especially black and multiracial boys — disproportionately.

Sanders and another superintendent who testified Monday — Grant Schmidt of the Hanover district — took issue with how the state calculated the data cited in the story, saying it does not give a fair picture because of the relatively small numbers of students impacted.

There’s plenty more in Chalkbeat’s report — including an eye-opening remark by Republican Sen. Vicki Marble, of Fort Collins — all rendered with Garcia’s nuanced understanding of the issue. Here’s the link again.