{"id":94229,"date":"2019-05-01T15:03:21","date_gmt":"2019-05-01T21:03:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/full-day-kindergarten-bill-heads-to-polis-desk\/"},"modified":"2019-05-01T15:03:21","modified_gmt":"2019-05-01T21:03:21","slug":"full-day-kindergarten-bill-heads-to-polis-desk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/full-day-kindergarten-bill-heads-to-polis-desk\/","title":{"rendered":"Full-day kindergarten bill heads to Polis\u2019 desk"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A bill to fund full-day kindergarten cleared the House on Tuesday. The $175 million spending bill now heads to Gov. Jared Polis for a signature.<\/span>Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 Free, full-day kindergarten will be available to all Colorado kids this fall, thanks to the final passage late Tuesday of House Bill 1262, which sets aside $175 million for the program.<\/p>\n

The bill now heads to Gov. Jared Polis\u2019 desk, a fulfillment of one of the new governor\u2019s signature campaign promises. It is also a major victory for Southwest Colorado school districts, which collectively spend more than $2 million<\/a> paying for full-day kindergarten out of their general fund money. Now, Durango 9-R, Montezuma-Cortez, Bayfield and Mancos school districts will be able to use the extra revenue to increase teacher salaries.<\/p>\n

Bill sponsor Rep. Jim Wilson, R-Salida, has fought for years to get funding for a full-day kindergarten program, which statute requires the state to fund but has been neglected since the 2008 recession. When the bill cleared its first hurdle, the House Education Committee in early April, Wilson compared the success to the monumental 19th-century completion of the transcontinental railroad.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur kindergarten work will never be done, but little do you realize what you have done,\u201d he said. \u201cLet\u2019s get this kindergarten train rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polis initially requested $227 million to fund full-day kindergarten, but the number was cut down to $185 million and then $175 million.<\/p>\n

The bill was also sponsored by Durango\u2019s Democratic Rep. Barbara McLachlan, a former teacher who chairs the House Education Committee. It had broad bipartisan support and passed unanimously through the Senate, although on Tuesday 11 lawmakers voted against it in the House.<\/p>\n

Colorado currently funds half-day kindergarten, and around 50,000 kindergartners \u2013 nearly 80 percent \u2013 attend full-day programs, which are funded by tuition charges or money from school budgets. About 14,000 students attend half-day programs. While attending kindergarten will remain voluntary, Polis and lawmakers hope the state-funded full-day program will encourage more families to put their kids in full-day kindergarten.<\/p>\n

Attending kindergarten will remain optional and districts will not be required to offer full-day programs, although HB 1262 does prohibit them from charging tuition for kindergarten.<\/p>\n

rhandy@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

$175 million spending bill will help regional schools pay teachers more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":94230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[2766,394,14,21,1086,155,216],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-94229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-bayfield-school-district","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-colorado-state-house-of-representatives","tag-cortez","tag-durango-school-district-9-r","tag-education","tag-montezuma-cortez-school-district-re-1"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=94229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/94230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=94229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=94229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=94229"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=94229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}