A plan to overhaul the Colorado School Finance Act and provide more money for schools with a high number of at-risk students, like District 50, is now public. The complex proposal is the first attempt to rewrite the funding formula in nearly 20 years.

Senator Michael Johnston, a former principal, unveiled his proposal last week calling it, “a once-in-a-generation chance to get this right.”

You can read the bill and other details on his website.

 

If passed by the legislature this spring, voters would be asked for their approval in November. The plan would cost taxpayers up to $1 billion a year. The bill has not formally been introduced.

Among the bill’s highlights:

• Additional money for all school districts in Colorado
• Funding for full day kindergarten for all Colorado Children
• Preschool funding for at-risk kids
• Additional funding for students receiving free and reduced meals
• Additional funding for English Language Learners

Roughly 80% of District 50 students qualify for free and reduced meals and 40% are second language learners, so a change to the school funding formula would help the District. This year the District’s Fiscal Accountability Committee urged the Board of Education to consider the possibility of a mill-levy override election in November, but no decision has been made.

At this week’s Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Pamela Swanson told the Board of Education that district officials are following events at the capital closely, but cannot assume that the bill will become law.