DENVER — The Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) and Adams 12 Five Star Schools have canceled school for students on Thursday as staff have shared they will be participating in the No More Education Cuts statewide day of action on March 20 led by the Colorado Education Association.
With Colorado facing a $1 billion budget shortfall, Governor Jared Polis proposed changes to how school districts are funded using a single-year student count to determine per-pupil funding. Previously, funding was based on average enrollment over a few years.
"The Governor’s budget proposal increases education funding by $138 million next year, in a challenging budget year, and average per-pupil spending will increase by an additional $388," Ally Sullivan, deputy press secretary for Gov. Jared Polis' office, said. "Any assertion that the Governor has proposed or would support a cut to education funding is simply false. The responsible budget proposal he proposed funds students based on where they are learning, not through arbitrary multi-year averaging."
President of the Colorado Education Association Kevin Vick explained the direct impact this proposed funding formula would have on school districts.
"So as soon as you change or get rid of the averaging, it creates a huge deficit for a number of schools across the state which many would have to make immediate drastic cuts," Vick said. "They would have to layoff hundreds of teachers. They would have to close programs, they would have to close schools, and so by simply changing this methodology for determining our funding every year, it really does have a negative impact on us."
Several weeks ago, Adams 12 Five Star Schools Superintendent Chris Gdowski called out the governor's planexplaining it would create a $13.2 million shortfall for the district along with larger class sizes, a loss of 130 teachers and fewer extracurricular options for students.
Dave Lockley, a social studies teacher and president of the District 12 Educators' Association, expressed concerns for funding cuts, believing this rally will show legislators the impact it will have.
"The main goal of the the protest on Thursday is really for our legislators to hear from the people in the field, our educators, our parents, our community members, because our teachers are our parents, just like myself, almost every one of the people that are going to be down at the Capitol, they're teachers, but they're also parents. They're community members, they're taxpayers, all trying to say that we are already one of the worst funded, education systems in the state," Lockley said.
Not only is Lockley a teacher at Adams 12 Five Star Schools, but he also is a proud alumnus and has two children in the district.
He shared an email was sent out to the Five Star Community explaining there will not be school due to "labor shortages" and that the "decision has been made because hundreds of teachers have indicated they will take personal leave on that Thursday to participate in the Colorado Education Association’s (CEA) planned statewide rally of educators at the Capitol."
"While the Governor shares the goal of funding schools even more, canceling school puts hardships on parents and prevents students from receiving the learning they need and deserve,” Sullivan said.
Lockley explained this is an opportunity for people to participate in their First Amendment rights and educators have planned for this absence.
"We don't predict any disruption in school activities or learning, in fact, many of our educators, because they've been planning for this, this absence for a while, they've developed their own scopes and sequences, so that students won't have any interruption to their own individual learning activities," Lockley said.
The rally will be held at the Colorado State Capitol from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday. The event is for "anybody who is concerned about the state of public education in Colorado," according to Vick.
Looking toward the future, Vick hopes there will be a better understanding of funding services that improve the quality of life to everyone in Colorado.
"We know schools are the backbone of any community and we can't continue to balance the budget on the backs of students and educators in the system anymore," Vick said.
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