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Students on Colorado’s Youth Advisory Council come with ideas for state lawmakers
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Approved, Chalkbeat Colorado, State

Students on Colorado’s Youth Advisory Council come with ideas for state lawmakers

By Ann Schimke | Chalkbeat Colorado Help schools install solar panels to cut fossil fuel use. Reduce cafeteria food waste by creating “share” tables and composting programs. Stock opioid overdose remedies in school AED cabinets. These are a few of ideas that Colorado teens proposed to state lawmakers on Thursday as part of a program that seeks to include young people in the legislative process. It’s possible some of the ideas could eventually become law. Most of the eight proposals presented Thursday by students on the Colorado Youth Advisory Council touched on environmental or health issues. Others addressed the shortage of school bus transportation and the difficulty that students with disabilities face in navigating school buildings. The advisory council consists of 40 students...
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A year after exchange student hit and killed near school, Colorado Springs adding speed zones, crosswalks
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Approved, CBS 11 KKTV, Local

A year after exchange student hit and killed near school, Colorado Springs adding speed zones, crosswalks

By Cameron Dean | CBS 11 News Before the start of the next school year, five more schools will have crosswalks installed to increase the safety of students and pedestrians. Coronado, Pine Creek, and Sand Creek High Schools as well as Holmes and Sand Creek Middle School will all have a crosswalk and slow speed zone before students have their first day of school. City officials said they had specific parameters for choosing the next schools to add crosswalks to. READ THE FULL STORY AT CBS 11 NEWS
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Hundreds of teaching positions unfilled statewide despite $10k state stipend
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Approved, DENVER7, State

Hundreds of teaching positions unfilled statewide despite $10k state stipend

By Brandon Richard | Denver 7 News With a new school year on the horizon, school districts across Colorado are looking to fill hundreds of open teaching positions. But some positions will likely remain unfilled due to Colorado’s ongoing teacher shortage. As a longtime teacher herself, Brooke Williams knows the struggles Colorado teachers face. “The job becomes more increasingly more and more challenging every year,” Williams said. “We're asking teachers to do the impossible.” READ THE FULL STORY AT DENVER 7 NEWS
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Tony May faces Garfield School Board recall; accused of bullying, other claims
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Approved, Local, Post Independent

Tony May faces Garfield School Board recall; accused of bullying, other claims

By Taylor Cramer  | The Post-Independent Former Garfield Re-2 School Board President Tony May is facing a recall election on Aug. 27. Last year, May led efforts to implement American Birthright Standards, which ultimately failed to gain approval from the board after facing significant resistance from community members and district personnel​. Organizers of the recall petition that followed accused May of bullying community members and Re-2 staff members, misusing his position and more. His opponent is Sott Bolitho, endorsed by the Coalition for Responsible Education in Re-2, who was profiled in the Post Independent and Citizen Telegram last week. May resigned as board president in December, aiming to reduce political tensions. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE POST-INDEPENDE...
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Clear Creek hires Superintendent Tom Meyer from Bellevue, Iowa
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Approved, Clear Creek Courant, Local

Clear Creek hires Superintendent Tom Meyer from Bellevue, Iowa

By Chris Koeberl | Clear Creek Courant Clear Creek Schools Superintendent Tom Meyer officially started in his position July 1, but he’s been preparing for the role for more than 25 years in education. Meyer assumes the role of permanent superintendent succeeding Karen Quanbeck and interim Superintendent Mike Gass for the district. The previous pair guided schools to an expeditionary learning experience for students, which Gass often commented utilized the “gift of place” in the county. READ THE FULL STORY AT THE CLEAR CREEK COURANT
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COVID set back 8th graders an entire school year compared with pre-pandemic peers, study finds
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Approved, Chalkbeat Colorado, National

COVID set back 8th graders an entire school year compared with pre-pandemic peers, study finds

By Erica Meltzer | Chalkbeat Colorado COVID disruptions continue to cast a long shadow over student learning, with middle school students in particular suffering the cumulative effects of years of missed lessons, new research shows. The analysis from the testing group NWEA released Tuesday estimates that eighth graders would need an additional nine months of schooling — an entire school year, essentially — to do as well as their counterparts before the pandemic. Third graders, meanwhile, would need a little more than two months of extra schooling to match their counterparts, according to results from the group’s MAP Growth tests that it administers several times a year. Across grades and subjects, students continue to perform worse on these tests than similar students did bef...
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A look inside a dyslexia screening program for some of Colorado’s rural students
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Approved, Chalkbeat Colorado, State

A look inside a dyslexia screening program for some of Colorado’s rural students

By Ann Schimke | Chalkbeat Colorado When teacher Cindy Haralson would point at her preschool class with a stuffed owl named Baby Echo, most children quickly repeated the letter, word, and sound they’d just heard her say. Think “B, bat, b.” But one little girl — a good listener and natural problem-solver — stared blankly at her teacher day after day last year, unable to reproduce what she was hearing and seeing. Haralson recalled the girl looking at her classmates, as if to say, “How do you guys do that? How do you know that?” The girl’s struggle with alphabet lessons was the kind of red flag that can signal problems learning to read, problems that Haralson believes too often go unaddressed for years. “It seems like we always wait till kindergarten or first grade, and somet...
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Hancey: An open letter to Ms. Reed, asking for your resignation
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Approved, Commentary, Local

Hancey: An open letter to Ms. Reed, asking for your resignation

By Aaron Hancey | Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice I respectfully ask for your immediate resignation! You have had the privilege of being a leader to your community on at least two different occasions: 1. As a teacher and survivor of the shooting at Columbine High School and 2. As a currently elected non-partisan official on the Jefferson County School Board.  I can relate.  I am also a non-partisan elected official. I currently am the mayor pro-tem for the City of Fruita on the Western Slope of Colorado. I, too, am a survivor of the shooting at Columbine High School and was 17 years old when I helped to lead a classroom that was full of scared students and teachers while I administered first aid to Mr. Sanders. He had been shot multiple times and I spent three-and-a-...
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Teacher’s alleged Trump post does not speak for district, Jeffco schools say
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Approved, kdvr.com, Local

Teacher’s alleged Trump post does not speak for district, Jeffco schools say

By Morgan Whitley | Fox 31 News Jefferson County Public Schools sent a statement to FOX31 after screenshots were shared across the internet allegedly showing one of the district’s teachers discussing how former President Donald Trump “was almost taken out” at his rally on Saturday. A Facebook post allegedly made by an elementary school teacher is making its rounds online. Screenshots of the post appear to show the teacher talking about Trump’s attempted assassination and allegedly agreeing with a commenter who was upset “they missed.” “Please know that Jeffco Public Schools does not endorse violence of any kind. The district has social media guidance that encourages our employees to conduct themselves in a professional manner and refrain from posting inappropriate conten...
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Jeffco will pilot new programs, including a welcome center bus, to better serve immigrant students
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Approved, Chalkbeat Colorado, Local

Jeffco will pilot new programs, including a welcome center bus, to better serve immigrant students

By Yesenia Robles | Chalkbeat Colorado An influx of immigrant students last year left the Jeffco school district scrambling to meet their needs. So this fall, officials are piloting new programs and support to help students. The school district is piloting a series of changes, including new staff, resources, and curriculum materials, as well as a new welcome center bus, after hundreds of immigrant students arrived throughout the past school year. The district is planning for the surge to continue into next school year. “Our schools have been incredibly autonomous in how they meet the needs of our special populations and especially our multilingual language learners,” Jeffco Superintendent Tracy Dorland told the district’s school board this spring. “Our student achievement data tel...
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