DENVER – For the second day in a row, members of the state Senate’s State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted along party lines and against most testimony – killing a measure to ask voters for more kindergarten funding.
On Wednesday, the committee heard from educators and members of the public on the need to increase funds for full-day kindergarten.
Currently, kindergarten in Colorado receives 58 percent of the per-pupil funding that other K-12 grades get, meaning school districts offering full-day kindergartens either have to charge parents or pull money from their general funds.
Senate Bill 029, which died Wednesday on a 3-2 vote, would have created a ballot issue asking Coloradans to raise the funding rate to 65 percent for the 2017-18 fiscal year and further increase it until it reaches full funding by 2022-23.
Sen. Andy Kerr, D-Lakewood, a bill sponsor, said, “I’m disappointed. In the House, with the Democrats in charge in the House. They have a full-day kindergarten bill being presented by a member of the minority (James Wilson R-Salida), a Republican who’s in the minority, and they send it to the Education Committee first,” Kerr said.
The vote, which ran counter to most public testimony, is also a disappointment, he said. “We had people from all over the state testifying in favor of this, and not one person testifying against. I don’t know if it’s party politics. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I’m disappointed that we didn’t get a better result.”
The public testimony focused largely on the academic impact full-day kindergarten has on child development.
“Research shows that full-day kindergarten gives students more time to explore activities in depth and reflect on those. It gives teachers more opportunities to actually observe their children and perhaps pick up on some learning needs that could be addressed later,” said Lisa Lee, a gifted and talented facilitator at Wheat Ridge High School.
Also discussed was the need to meet the expanded demands placed on kindergartners through curricula that are trying to close the achievement gap.
“I am here today to ask you to move our education system into the 21st century,” said Richard Green, a kindergarten teacher from the Denver area.
Sen. Owen Hill, R-Colorado Springs, said he felt a yes vote was an admission that this is a statewide concern with a one-size-fits-all answer, whereas a no vote still implies that this is an issue, but it should be left to the local jurisdictions to decide, which would be his preference.
“That is why I will be a ‘no’ vote today,” Hill said.
The bill would not have affected Durango School District 9-R funding for kindergarten because the district pulls money from its general fund to cover the state’s shortcoming, but it would have freed roughly $1.4 million of discretionary funding for the district.
lperkins@durangoherald.com
In other action
A total of 18 bills were scheduled for committee hearings on Wednesday, including the following:
Senate Bill 25, which would create a bank of educational materials for public schools concerning marijuana use. The bill was approved unanimously by the Senate Business, Labor, and Technology Committee and will be moved to the Senate floor for a second reading.
Senate Bill 27 would increase the penalty for texting while driving to a $500 fine and 5 points for a first offense and a $750 fine and 6 points for a second or subsequent offense.” The bill went before the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, and it was held for vote at a later date.
House Bill 1013 is a religious-freedom proposal that would allow business owners to deny service as long as “it does not include the ability to act or refuse to act based on race or ethnicity.” After more than four hours of testimony, the House State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee killed it on a party-line vote with Democrats using their 6-3 majority.
Luke Perkins
