With election season officially over, dozens of new school board members are preparing to take their seats in school districts throughout the state of Colorado. It is the duty of these new members to make the best decisions possible for their constituents and to ensure that parents and children have access to an education that allows each student to flourish both academically and socially.

However, proposed policy resolutions under consideration by the Colorado Association of School Boards (CASB) seek to undermine this responsibility of school board members, take away control from communities, parents, and students, and lower the quality and standard of educational choice within Colorado.

CASB is a powerful interest group that lobbies heavily at the state legislature and often plays a role in influencing key education legislation. These resolutions shape and inform the organization’s legislative agenda, which means they should be of concern to supporters of public charter schools and parental choice statewide as Colorado rapidly approaches the kickoff of the 2022 legislative session.

Taken individually and as a whole, this year’s CASB resolutions aim to make the establishment of charter schools and other forms of educational choice that differ from traditional public schools much more difficult. New and old school board members alike should oppose them.

The first of the problematic measures is Resolution No. 10, proposed by Adams 12 Five Star Schools. This resolution would make the establishment and growth of public schools charter schools much more difficult than it is today. Similar to last year’s defeated HB 1295 by Denver state Rep. Jennifer Bacon, this proposal seeks to stack the deck against charter schools by changing the standard applied during appeals to the Colorado State Board of Education following the denial of a charter application or renewal by a local school district.

The resolution would require charter schools to demonstrate that the decision to deny their application was “arbitrary and capricious” – a significant change from the current standard, which instructs the State Board to consider whether a denial was “contrary to the best interests of the pupils, school district, or community.”

In addition to inappropriately shifting the focus of appeals away from the needs of students, families, and communities, this subtle change to legalese with a highly specific definition would make it substantially more difficult for charters to win on appeal with the State Board of Education and would provide additional cover to local school boards that deny charter applications for purely political reasons.

Another proposal, Resolution No. 12 from Poudre School District, calls for a requirement that charter schools provide a written rationale for seeking waivers from certain sections of Colorado education law. These waivers are the heart and soul of most charter schools, which rely on the flexibility the waivers provide to tailor their educational models, curriculum, and personnel to meet the needs of the students and communities they serve. Without them, charter schools would look no different than traditional public schools, which would deny meaningful educational choices to parents across Colorado.

While not explicitly stated in the resolution, it logically follows that having to justify any given waiver raises the possibility of that waiver being more easily rejected. Thus, this proposal could (and, we believe, is intended to) become a backdoor avenue for bureaucrats to kill or hobble new charter schools.

Finally, a proposal from Colorado Springs District 11 (which notably saw its board flip in the recent election) has nothing to do with charter schools but would seek to kill a new approach to authorizing different public schools of choice in Colorado. Existing state statute allows boards of cooperative educational services, or BOCES, to authorize brick-and-mortar schools wherever they can meet the needs of students who are otherwise not being well served by existing options – with or without the permission of a local school district.

District 11 is currently involved in a lawsuit against one BOCES, the Education ReEnvisioned BOCES, regarding a school for dyslexic students authorized within the district’s boundaries. District 11 lost the first round of that suit and is now seeking to circumvent the courts by altering the law itself – an action that will both deny choices to Colorado parents and potentially lead to harmful unintended consequences for other BOCES schools and programs statewide.

Voters spoke loudly and clearly in many districts across Colorado in November, and newly elected school board members now have a responsibility to oppose CASB resolutions or other proposals that seek to take away educational choice and opportunities from students, parents and communities.

Rob Moulton is the founder of the Education Alliance of Colorado, a coalition of public schools and parents representing nearly 20,000 students across nine school districts.