K-12 education in Colorado is a big fat mess. No question. Schools are caught in COVID limbo, with some schools returning to full time, others keeping to a hybrid schedule, and many students continuing online. Teachers are trying to get their vaccinations, which puts to rest complaints from some that they’re resisting returning to the classroom.

That claim about teachers is particularly pernicious. Talk about working between a rock and a hard place. Public school teachers catch derision for their caution, with the deriders accusing teacher unions of blocking classroom returns. But very recently, 1,500 Jeffco middle and high school students petitioned the school board to not resume full-time classes because of COVID insecurity.

Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers says that New York City offers a model for returning to classrooms. That’s a district with a strong union presence. How has the district moved forward? New York City schools benefit from a much larger budget than any Colorado schools. Elementary schools returned to full time in December upon receipt of parent consent forms for COVID testing.

For students to return to school full time in grades 6-8 starting Feb. 25, parents must agree to in-school COVID testing. The random testing occurs weekly for students and staff. The city has improved its ventilation, requires masks, six feet separation, and frequent hand washing.

New York City’s cases have decreased to 6,200 on Feb. 22 with a one week rolling average of 7,300. Colorado’s seven day moving average is 956 cases.

The legislature is apparently waiting for the $1.9 trillion COVID package to pass Congress before it commits more significant funds to schools. According to reports, the bill won’t get to President Joe Biden until the middle of March. Maybe then the governor and Joint Budget Committee can figure a way to finance opening schools.

There’s likely to be a startup ramp which probably puts openings into the beginning of April, at the earliest. If Republican legislators feel this schedule is too dilatory, they should communicate their commitment to random in-school testing, with the necessary appropriated funds, to the governor immediately. Public schools could probably get a two-week head start on reopening that way.

Whatever the Biden administration ploughs into schools won’t be enough for Colorado. Here are some figures to consider. Biden wants somewhere from $100 billion to $130 billion to open schools. Those funds would be for COVID testing and other safety actions. Colorado could receive about $20 million of those funds based on its population. Let’s fantasize that Colorado gets as much as $100 million. Neither number is enough to undo the damage of a year of remote and hybrid learning and associated chaos.

Schools don’t need money just for COVID testing. They will need lots of money for academic remediation. The state doesn’t have to conduct massive standardized testing to understand how far behind kids must be. Fortunately, there’s a bill to put off the CMAS tests for the year. It will be interesting to see how legislators vote, because many lawmakers committed to Democrats for Education Reform believe that standardized testing is crucial to diagnostics.

If the testing led to massive investments in Colorado’s k-12 education for more teachers, better teacher salaries, remediation programs, academic diagnostics, school counseling services, tutors, aides, and anything else to reverse this year’s COVID derived debacle, perhaps the testing would be worthwhile. But if history serves, the decline in achievement would form the basis of another cudgel to berate Colorado’s public k-12 teachers.

The people who are not cudgeling are the moms who’ve left their jobs or cut back on work to take care of their kids and act as substitute teachers. According to many studies, women are on the butt end of this COVID disaster. Women of color on minimum or low wages are on the butt of the butt end.

How is the legislature responding so far? Some Democratic women legislators are offering a diapers bill to provide money for nappies for babies and toddlers. Obviously that will be a relief to families that can’t afford diapers, but it won’t dig women out of their wages woes.

Employers offered some employees flexible hours in the first part of the epidemic. It was a start that’s apparently stopped or is not enough. At some point soon, this state needs a reckoning, and investment in women’s lives needs to be the focus. Their children, their spouses, and their extended families will be the beneficiaries.