Author: Chalkbeat Colorado

Twice in his young life, Finn Jillson has been hospitalized with the seasonal flu. Finn has asthma. A few years ago, he ended up in an ambulance on his way to the closest children’s hospital within three hours of coming down with a flu cough, his mother said. Finn’s asthma also puts him at increased…

Rachael Tamir, a sixth-grade teacher in southeastern Colorado, texted her principal a couple weeks before she was scheduled to report to work in August. “I’m starting to get really panicked about child care,” she wrote. Tamir knew returning to in-person teaching meant she had to find a safe place for her toddler son, Owen, and…

As schools have started opening their doors to students this fall, and as others plan to do so soon, one more logistical problem districts have had to navigate is how to safely transport masses of students to their buildings. Like many of the problems school districts have encountered in the pandemic, this is one that…

Colorado students in kindergarten through third grade soon will have access to lessons in reading, math, science, and art through their television sets. Gov. Jared Polis announced the launch of “Colorado Classroom: Learn with Me at Home” on Monday. The programming starts Sept. 7 and airs for at least 15 weeks on Rocky Mountain PBS.…

When COVID-19 hit, the internet became an essential school supply. Districts in the Denver metro area scrambled to meet the need, collectively spending more than $1 million in the past five months to buy mobile hotspots and pay families’ internet bills so children could learn. Philanthropies and foundations have spent even more. But the effort…

Denver Public Schools will open its preschools starting early next month. It’s a first step toward bringing students back to the classroom in Colorado’s largest district, where most students are learning remotely until at least Oct. 16. Early childhood centers at Escalante-Biggs, Pascual LeDoux, Sandra Todd-Williams, and Stephen Knight plan to open on Sept. 8,…

For $10 per day, Denver’s after-school program is offering families a solution to one of education’s biggest challenges right now: Who will supervise my child during remote learning? Denver Public Schools’ Discovery Link program usually runs before- and after-school programs. But since Monday, Discovery Link staff, as well as staff from other community organizations, have…

Outside a suburban Denver elementary school, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis bent his head for a temperature check before getting the all-clear to head inside and meet a small group of masked second-graders who were back in school for the first time since March. He was at Village East Community Elementary School, part of the Cherry…