Author: Ann Schimke Chalkbeat Colorado
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Fears flare that Colorado free preschool could shortchange kids with learning delays
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As state leaders prepare to launch Colorado’s free preschool program next fall, some educators and advocates fear young children with disabilities will lose out under the new system. They say 3-year-olds could be rejected for a spot and 4-year-olds could receive less preschool than they’re due because of the narrow way the state asks about…
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Are you a Colorado child care provider who’s open for business? The state has money for you.
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Thousands of Colorado child care providers can receive grants of $1,000 or $3,000 under a new state program meant to help the child care sector survive the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The grant program, funded with $9 million in federal coronavirus relief money, will unfold in two rounds, with the first set of…
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Some Colorado educators seek to postpone fall reading assessments. State Board of Education members object.
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State Board of Education members on Wednesday resisted suggestions that Colorado schools delay identifying struggling readers until winter, instead of sticking to the usual fall timeline. There was no official vote taken, but several board members made it clear they want kindergarten through third-grade students assessed at the start of the school year, even if…
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She closed her child care center for coronavirus. Now, she’s wondering if she’ll ever reopen.
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Crystal Redner closed the child care center she helms in southeastern Colorado in late March as the coronavirus pandemic worsened. Soon, she pinned her financial hopes on reopening as part of a state program to serve the children of essential workers. On Tuesday, she got bad news. Although the state and her own board OK’d the plan,…
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Chalkbeat: Colorado State Board calls for more teacher training on reading, not less
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Hoping to push up Colorado’s persistently low reading scores, the State Board of Education on Wednesday opted for tougher rules around teacher training on reading instruction. In calling for higher standards, the board lined up with advocates for students with dyslexia, despite objections from groups representing teachers, district administrators, and rural educators. The new rules will govern…
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‘It’s huge for us’: More than a dozen Colorado districts approve school tax measures
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Officials in the Poudre School District plan to bump salaries for first-year teachers by around $4,000. Greeley-Evans District 6 leaders will rebuild a crumbling high school and expand a K-8 school that’s wildly overcrowded. And Pueblo District 60 officials will rebuild two district high schools – both of which have major foundation damage. These are…
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As Colorado invests more in preschool, study shows benefits of full-day classes
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A new study shows large literacy gains and other benefits for full-day preschoolers as they enter kindergarten compared with their half-day peers – timely findings given the surge of new publicly funded preschool classrooms in Colorado. The new evidence, gleaned from a study of students in the Westminster school district north of Denver, comes amid…
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In record year for measles, 24,000 Colorado students are back in school with exemptions from shots
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Amid a record number of measles cases nationwide, about 24,000 Colorado kids went back to school this fall with personal or religious exemptions from the vaccination that protects against the highly contagious disease. Public health experts say Colorado is particularly susceptible to a measles outbreak because of low immunization rates, with the state’s lenient exemption…
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Colorado built a system to measure child care quality. Now, it wants more providers to climb the ratings ladder.
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Four years ago, every licensed preschool and child care provider in Colorado received a rating, for the first time in the state’s history. The vast majority of programs started out with Level 1 ratings, the lowest in the new five-tier “Colorado Shines” system. Since then, the state has pumped millions of dollars into the system…
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Many eligible families don’t use the Denver Preschool Program; new CEO wants to change that
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Elsa Holguín considers herself a bridge of sorts – someone who can cross divides and connect communities. It’s something she’s done since she landed in a Denver housing project at the age of 17 after immigrating to the U.S. from Mexico with her family in 1979. Even as she witnessed poverty and hardship where she lived,…
