Author: Erica Meltzer CHALKBEAT COLORADO

Six school districts and the associations that represent them are suing to stop a change to Colorado law that could increase access to school choice but that was approved under questionable circumstances. The lawsuit filed this week in Denver District Court doesn’t deal with the merits of the policy but with the way it was…

Amie Baca-Oehlert, a school counselor from the Adams 12 district north of Denver, recently took the helm of the 35,000-member Colorado Education Association. She’s served as the vice president of the state’s largest teachers union since 2012, working closely with recent president Kerrie Dallman. In that time, union-backed candidates have gained ground on school boards…

Colorado’s teachers unions have been living in a post-Janus world for decades. The U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 is being widely interpreted on the left and the right as a blow to public sector unions, including teachers unions. The decision means that states and school districts will no longer…

After millions of dollars and what sure felt like millions of mailers and door-knocks, Coloradans have their candidates for governor: Democrat Jared Polis and Republican Walker Stapleton. Education was a major feature of the primary campaign on the Democratic side, as candidates jockeyed to emphasize what amounted to small differences. It was barely mentioned on…

Buses from other school districts already pass through the tiny Sheridan school district, picking up homeless students who are entitled by law to transportation to their home districts in nearby Littleton or Denver. What if those buses could make a few additional stops, picking up perhaps dozens more students who aren’t homeless but prefer to…

With less than a month to go before the primary, the Democratic candidates for governor of Colorado are sparring not over the future of education policy but over the past. Two main issues are at play in the negative ads, contentious debate exchanges, and accusatory mailers that have made their way into mailboxes across Colorado:…

Lawmakers took a small step toward expanding suicide prevention efforts in Colorado schools before the end of the 2018 session. A bipartisan bill that’s headed to the governor’s desk allocates $400,000 for small grants of between $5,000 and $10,000 to schools to train staff in suicide prevention. This modest yet hard-won bill is the only…

More marijuana tax money will go toward school construction starting next year, but the funds won’t go as far as they could have. That’s because some lawmakers are nervous about borrowing against pot money when the industry faces an uncertain regulatory future. They removed a provision in a bipartisan bill that would have allowed the…