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Colorado is cutting funding for its poorest students. The tool meant to replace it was suspended.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado is cutting funding for its poorest students. The tool meant to replace it was suspended.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice In Colorado's smallest school districts, the ones tucked into rural towns, two state programs direct extra money each year to districts based on how many students live in poverty. They are not a lot, but they are specific. They are meant for those kids. And they are going away. The state is winding down two programs that have directed about $12 million a year to schools serving Colorado's highest concentrations of low-income students. One program was already repealed when the new fiscal year started. The other drops to half its current level July 1 and is eliminated in FY 2027-28.  The tool the state built to replace how it counts and funds at-risk students was suspended five weeks ago, after two years of data col...
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DPS Fires Teacher After Students Report Pressure To Participate In Same Sex Kissing Skits
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CBS Colorado, Approved, Local

DPS Fires Teacher After Students Report Pressure To Participate In Same Sex Kissing Skits

By: Logan Smith | CBS Colorado Denver Public Schools board members voted unanimously May 20 to dismiss a 50-year-old foreign language teacher following a district investigation and an independent review into student complaints about a class assignment. The board voted 7-0 after meeting in executive session to consider the firing of Jennifer Honka. Honka taught French Language and Culture at Northeast Early College for all of her eight years with the district. Officially, Honka was fired for incompetence and neglect of duty. There was no public debate among the board members prior to the vote. Honka's classroom instruction first came into question during the 2023-24 school year. She had received the highest possible rating in district assessments the prior three years. ...
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DU Restructures as Enrollment Falls 19 Percent From Pandemic Peak
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

DU Restructures as Enrollment Falls 19 Percent From Pandemic Peak

By Nicole C. Brambila | The Denver Gazette Odifure Udegbe walked the stage Friday to chorus of whoops and hollers as he received his Master’s in Science degree from the University of Denver. Originally from Nigeria, Udegbe said he enrolled at DU to make himself more competitive in a tough job market. “I think whoever is going to take a chance on me has everything to win,” Udegbe said. The new grad was among the more than 3,400 undergrad and graduate students who accepted their diplomas last weekend at DU — marking what Provost Elizabeth Loboa called the end of the university’s pandemic-era enrollment boom. Peaking at 14,130 students in the fall of 2021, DU enrollment has declined for four consecutive years, falling to 11,499 students in 2025, according to...
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Cherry Creek Schools Target Of New Federal Civil Rights Investigation
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

Cherry Creek Schools Target Of New Federal Civil Rights Investigation

By Nicholas Fogleman | The Denver Gazette The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into Cherry Creek School District on Monday over allegations of racial discrimination. The department said its Office for Civil Rights is reviewing claims that the district violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by sponsoring “a wide range of racially-discriminatory programming.” The complaints alleged the district discriminated on the basis of race in student clubs, academic support programs, teacher training and a parent committee, the department said in a news release. In a statement, the district said it has not yet received a copy of the complaint and could not comment in detail. “We strongly disagree with the characterization of the district programming...
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Denver Public Schools Grows Bureaucracy While Student Population Declines
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The Denver Gazette, Approved, Local

Denver Public Schools Grows Bureaucracy While Student Population Declines

By: Nicole C. Brambila | The Denver Gazette Meanwhile, the district employs 262 fewer teachers compared to 5 years ago. Denver Public Schools (DPS) has operated with thousands fewer students than its peak enrollment in 2019 but it has grown its administrative ranks back to nearly their pre-pandemic level, a Denver Gazette analysis of state staffing data shows. This finding mirrors a statewide trend identified in a report by the Common Sense Institute (CSI) that found Colorado school districts continued to grow their administrative staff despite declining student enrollment. In the past five years, districts across the state have added more than 250 administrators, a 13.1% increase, according to CSI. State data shows Colorado has lost more than...
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Colorado protected school funding without touching TABOR refunds. Now it wants those too.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado protected school funding without touching TABOR refunds. Now it wants those too.

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Last session, the Colorado General Assembly passed a bill asking voters to waive their TABOR refunds to fund education.  The ballot title calls it "without raising taxes." No rates change.  But it asks Coloradans to let the state keep money the constitution currently requires it to give back, and it comes one year after the legislature moved more than $200 million into a protected school account without touching anyone's refund at all. The two moves address the same problem. They work very differently. What the legislature did first In 2025, tucked inside HB25-1320, the School Finance Act, a Senate Appropriations Committee amendment drafted by Sen. Kolker (D) and Sen. Kirkmeyer (R), created something...
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“Intentional obstruction”: CHEC argues Colorado lawmakers delayed homeschool changes until final days of session
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Christian Home Educators of Colorado, Approved, Commentary, State

“Intentional obstruction”: CHEC argues Colorado lawmakers delayed homeschool changes until final days of session

By Colleen Enos | Commentary, Christian Home Educators of Colorado When tasks are put off to the last minute, we assume that those responsible are procrastinators or that time just got away from them. We don’t typically think that what they did was intentional. Applying this logic to our state’s General Assembly would be wrong. The majority party plans the schedule of when bills will be debated in each chamber, how to introduce them, and enacts a plan of intentional obstruction. This process was taking place during the last three days of the legislative session. Controversial bills were saved for the very last moments. On Monday morning, the State House Appropriations Committee met to discuss the final bills. Committee hearings are a place for the public to offer testimony and make t...
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Appeals Court Weighs Parental Rights Case Against Jeffco Schools
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Approved, Complete Colorado, Local

Appeals Court Weighs Parental Rights Case Against Jeffco Schools

By Savana Kascak | Complete Colorado DENVER–The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month heard oral arguments in a lawsuit brought against Jefferson County Public Schools for rooming an 11-year-old girl in the same bed as a biological boy during an overnight trip. Plaintiffs’ lawyers told the court that school leaders told the girl to lie to her parents about the reasoning behind her distress while staying with the transgender student. As previously reported by Complete Colorado, the daughter of Joe and Serena Wailes went on a school trip to Philadelphia and Washing D.C. upon finishing the fifth grade. While on the trip, she was assigned the same room and bed as a biological boy who identified as a female. School officials had assured parents that boys and girls would be ...
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A Person’s a Person No Matter How Small
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Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

A Person’s a Person No Matter How Small

By Ken DeGraaf | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice This story is not merely about a brave young girl gone viral for a poignant poem. It is about a canary in a coal mine gasping for air as the poisons of a culture increasingly unable to tolerate truth swirl ever thicker in the atmosphere around it. When a 7th grader is barred from presenting a poem titled “A life is a life, no matter how small” to her Honors English classmates because it defended unborn life, Colorado should take stock of its condition. In a Jeffco district claiming that “all students…feel that their voices and perspectives are valued,” the promotion of life itself was deemed too offensive. A healthy civilization does not fear competing moral arguments. It does not silence peaceful dissent or require instit...
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Jeffco student barred from reading pro-life poem after school calls it “too politically charged”
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Local, Rocky Mountain Voice, Top Stories

Jeffco student barred from reading pro-life poem after school calls it “too politically charged”

By Kelly Notarfrancesco | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Jeffco School District values maintaining schools where “…all students…feel that their voices and perspectives are valued." Yet one 13-year-old 7th grade honors student said she does not feel respected at school, after school officials told her she is not allowed to participate in her class poetry presentation because her submission is “too offensive” and “too politically charged.” The Drake Middle School 7th grader, whose name is being withheld as she is a minor, submitted a poem titled, “A life is a life, no matter how small,” about choosing life over abortion.  Shortly after submitting her poem Monday, the student was approached by her 7th grade Honors English Language Arts teacher Laura Wolf and told she would...
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