Rally for education funding brings out Colorado teachers and families tired of a budget crisis every year
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DENVER — A sea of people, many wearing red in a show of support for public education, were shoulder to shoulder in front of the Capitol on Thursday, chanting and yelling for an end to cuts, as Colorado legislators, faced with a billion-dollar shortfall, grapple with how to fully fund education and balance their budget.
The protest, called No More Cuts: Statewide Day of Action and organized by the Colorado Education Association, closed districts and schools as teachers called out to attend the rally.
There were at least 2,000 people on the west steps of the Capitol building chanting “Fight, fight, fight, education is a right!” and “Fund our schools” and waving signs that read “no more cuts” and “protect public education.”
Boulder, Summit County, Adams 12 and Aurora closed their schools with Denver Public Schools closing nearly 80 percent of schools. Most of Colorado’s other large school districts are on spring break.
Mary Dolan, a special education teacher at Denver Public Schools, said it was embarrassing to be one of the lowest states in the county for funding education.
“I’m under-supported. Our whole entire school is underfunded. The entire special education department needs to be rehauled,” Dolan said. “There's so many different reasons why I'm here, but the bottom line is we cannot afford any cuts to education.”
Despite being one of the wealthiest states in the country, Colorado chronically underfunds its public schools by $4,000 to $4,500 per student per year compared to the national average, according to recent studies.
“Many people already know that Colorado students on average receive way less than the national average,” said East High School photography teacher Aimee Baker. “So we think that it's especially concerning that Polis is planning on cutting funding even more and we as teachers are already doing so much to try to educate public students for our future.”
Just a year ago, Gov. Jared Polis declared on the same west steps of the Capitol that lawmakers would no longer borrow money from schools in order to balance the budget. Over the past 14 years, state lawmakers withhold more than $10 billion from K-12 schools to balance the state budget. That money won’t be paid back.
Educators cheered and celebrated with Polis then. But now, the massive budget shortfall changes things.
“Last year we got rid of the budget stabilization factor, and so we thought we were finally putting our students first and giving them the education they deserve,” said Ashley Soldano, a Spanish teacher at Weld Central High School. “But here we are again at the Capitol trying to make sure that they are getting that funding. It is tiring every year to have to fight the fight.”
Polis’ proposal — while it will increase per-pupil funding for schools — would change the way students are counted. Kevin Vick, president of CEA, said that could cost schools $150 million.
Polis said in an interview the change needs to happen now.
“These are adjustments that districts would have to make anyways, it just says do it now instead of waiting three to four years,” he said a day before the rally.
While the crowd in Denver was full of teachers from across the state, not all teachers could make it to the Capitol but still wanted to participate in their own communities. On a chilly morning before 8, a group of teachers from Carbondale Middle School waved signs outside school as parents were dropping off kids at the middle and elementary schools.
The signs urged Polis not to make budget cuts to schools. Most drivers either honked or waved enthusiastically at the teachers.
“There is a lot on teachers' minds,” said Lisa Dameron, an instructional coach at Carbondale Middle School. “We are all very stressed for a multitude of reasons. We want to focus on the kids and educating them and having to do the same job with fewer dollars makes everything harder.”
She said some teachers from the Roaring Fork School district, which includes Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs, were making the trip to Denver on Thursday. Those that stayed behind were wearing red and also making phone calls and writing letters to Polis and state lawmakers.
CPR’s Bente Birkeland and Stephanie Wolf contributed to this report.
This story was produced by the Capitol News Alliance, a collaboration between KUNC News, Colorado Public Radio, Rocky Mountain PBS and The Colorado Sun, and shared with Rocky Mountain Community Radio and other news organizations across the state. Funding for the Alliance is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Type of story: News
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
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