As leaders of districts serving in the urban fringe of Denver and part of the San Luis Valley, we both face significant challenges in serving students and families in our communities.
In the San Luis Valley, the rural Center Consolidated School District serves a community of only 600 learners in five schools, where 88% of students are considered at risk, and a third are English Language Learners. In Center, the school district serves as the heart and soul of the community, providing essential services beyond education, including after-school programs, child care, community and family supports, and social-emotional, health and wellness resources.
Meanwhile, more than 200 miles away, Mapleton Public Schools, just outside Denver, serves 7,000 students, where over 78% are considered at risk, and 34% are learning English as a new language. Despite having access to metro-Denver amenities, Mapleton shares many of the same struggles as the Center school district. In our corner of the Denver area, our district faces a unique kind of isolation, nestled close to communities that are wealthier and less impacted by socioeconomic challenges. While our local community has rallied impressively to support our schools, there are glaring disparities with regard to resources and opportunities that exist mere miles away.
Our two districts, though in vastly different regions but serving a similar profile of students, know something to be true: For more than 30 years, our School Finance Act has shortchanged the students in districts like ours. The formula generates higher funding levels for districts with greater local wealth at the expense of students with the most critical instructional demands.
In Mapleton, the demand for specialized educational support is significant. Without adequate financial resources, our programs — designed to assist students with language barriers, special education needs, or those facing socioeconomic challenges — struggle to provide the necessary support. This not only restricts our ability to deliver personalized and effective education but also limits our capacity to uplift and transform the educational experiences for all of our students.
For many, Center School District is a lifeline, offering opportunities for growth, learning and connection. We grapple with being one of the lowest-income communities in the state, and this economic hardship disproportionately affects access to quality resources and support systems, particularly for marginalized groups. This means that every additional dollar allocated to Center schools has a profound impact on programming, resources and, most importantly, students’ futures.
The impact of this funding imbalance is deeply felt across our districts, where we are limited by the inability to provide the programs and resources needed in our communities. The ongoing underfunding represents more than a missed opportunity — it signifies a systemic oversight that perpetuates educational disparities for students like those in our districts.
This week, the Colorado House will debate House Bill 1448, known as the New Public School Finance Formula bill. Introduced by a slate of a bipartisan group of legislators and based on recommendations made by the 2023 School Finance Task Force, this legislation is a monumental step in ensuring that every student in our state receives the resources necessary for success.
The task force, created last year by the legislature and made up of a diverse group of leaders from across the state, including district leaders and advocates representing different perspectives, reached a consensus on a majority of the recommendations reflected in the bill.
This legislation invests over $500 million in schools, increasing funding for every district in the state and creating a funding floor so funding can’t drop in future years. It fixes the “order of operations,” putting student measures first and making the formula simpler and more understandable. Finally, it increases funding for public school capital construction, leveraging as much as $215 million to $272 million in new construction projects desperately needed across the state.
While there is still work to do to achieve adequate funding for education in Colorado, this legislation is an essential step. These changes will benefit all students while increasing funding for students identified as at-risk, learning English, and/or receiving special education services.
The update will take critical steps to improve equity in our schools and support the very reason we do this work: ensuring generations of Colorado learners can reach their full potential.
Fifty superintendents from across the state recently shared a jointly signed letter of support to this bill’s sponsors, encouraging the legislature to take advantage of this opportunity to do something truly historic for our state’s students.
At its core, this bill is about ensuring that we don’t allow more generations of students to pass through our schools without addressing the glaring inequities in this outdated formula. We thank our fellow leaders and Colorado’s policymakers for their leadership and for taking this monumental step.
Charlotte Ciancio has been the superintendent of Mapleton Public Schools for the past 23 years and has worked in education for 44 years.
Carrie Zimmerman is the superintendent of Center Consolidated School District 26JT and served on the 2023 School Finance Task Force.
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