A Roaring Start and an Advocacy Day to Remember

Dear Nora,

As the legislative session moves into its third week, the calendar is quickly filling with committee hearings. More than 250 bills have been introduced to date, and the League is closely monitoring 26 education-related bills that could directly impact our schools and students. Throughout this process, the League’s advocacy team remains focused on advancing our legislative agenda and is engaged daily with legislators and coalition partners to ensure our priorities are effectively represented at the Capitol.

Overview

After a relatively quiet start, the pace at the Capitol has picked up with a number of high-profile and contentious proposals emerging. Lawmakers are renewing debate on labor policy with efforts to ease unionization rules under Colorado’s Labor Peace Act, considering a ballot measure to raise the TABOR cap to bolster K-12 funding, and responding to national events with a package of bills aimed at restricting federal immigration enforcement in Colorado, all while several ballot initiatives around law enforcement’s relationship with federal authorities are also gaining attention.

Education Bills

So far this session, education bills have been relatively light. The very first education bills of the session were heard in the Education Committee this past week. We supported HB1028: Second Language Educational Program for High School Students and closely monitored HB1050: Optional Individualized Readiness Plan for Schools. We expect to see a lot more hearings as more education bills are introduced next week.

Policy Priority

One of the League’s core legislative priorities this session is pursuing legislation to ensure equitable charter inclusion when school districts seek voter-approved bond funding.

As a reminder, in the last 10 years alone, charter schools received $1.5 billion less than what a proportionate share of public funding on facilities would have been. By far the biggest driver of this inequity is the lack of equitable charter inclusion in district bond initiatives. Of the $15.5 billion in public funding that districts have received from bonds over the past 10 years, charters have received only about $550 million (~3.5%) despite serving nearly 16% of students.

The League is intending to introduce legislation in the coming weeks to address this imbalance and ensure greater transparency and fairness in future bond elections. As this proposal moves forward, engagement from school leaders and stakeholders will be critical. Colorado’s more than 260 charter schools serve over 136,000 students, and a unified voice helps ensure that facilities funding decisions reflect the needs of all public school students. Tell us how you’ll use your voice to make a difference at https://igniteadvocacy.com/w/965.

Advocacy Day

We want to end by saying what a success our annual Advocacy Day was on 1/29! We brought nearly 500 students from across Colorado and met with 30 legislators. One of the highlights of the day had to be when all top members of legislative leadership (Senate President Coleman, Speaker McCluskie, Senate Minority Leader Simpson, and House Minority Leader Caldwell) jointly addressed all the assembled students in the West Foyer, which was not only incredibly energizing for both the students and the legislators, it was also a healthy reminder of the long-standing bipartisan support we’ve been able to hold onto here in Colorado.

We encourage you to take a moment to view the photo gallery capturing the energy and impact of the day.

Conclusion

The League will continue advocating for charter schools at the Capitol and sharing timely updates as the legislative session progresses. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to our VP of Policy, Prateek Dutta: [email protected] or to our Advocacy Team at [email protected]. 

The League Advocacy Team
Anne, Kyle, and Prateek