CASB Serving You!
Week of: April 23, 2021
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CASB believes that quality public education is the foundation for our nation’s economic prosperity, community’s quality of life, and every child’s opportunity to live their best life. The following are current events and opportunities for our members:
PROFESSIONAL LEARNING
- The Built to Serve campaign to help recruit school board candidates is up and running. Recommend someone who you think would be a great school board member and we will contact them and provide information on running for school board!
- The next Board President Cafe is scheduled for May 13 and board presidents are welcome to sign up. The May 13 topic is: How do the responsibilities and role of the board president differ amongst districts? Register here
- Please take a moment to share with us your thoughts on our Regional Meetings, Fall Conference and Delegate Assembly, and the 81st Annual CASB Convention — the event survey is open now.
ADVOCACY
- The April 26 School Board Advocate is available on our website and covers the following topics:
- Bills we are still anticipating to drop, but have not yet as of Apr 26:
- Statewide Collective Bargaining
- Marijuana Potency Rules
- Early Childhood Education
- HB21-1294 K-12 Education Accountability Performance Audit dropped and aligns with CASB resolution #1
- Potential November ballot issues that have the potential of reducing tax revenues by as much as $1.5B collectively have received the green light to collect signatures:
- Initiatives #30 and #31 would reduce Colorado personal and corporate income taxes to either 4.5% or 4.4% from the current rate of 4.55%.
- Separate rulings from the Title Board granted title to initiatives #26, #27 and #28 which would reduce property taxes on Colorado residential and commercial property.
- There are more than 85 education-related bills that would influence public education introduced so far this session. You can find all the details on CASB’s interactive bill graphic and bill tracker.
- CASB’s Key Legislative Priorities are on the website and available for sharing with members and asking them to connect with their Key Legislators.
POLICY AND LEGAL
- The 2021 Election resources are available to CASB members on our website.
- Special Policy Updates are released on a quarterly basis and available on our website.
NSBA UPDATES
OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS
- As reported in Chalkbeat, Colorado will be exempt this year from federal requirements that the state identify and intervene in schools where students aren’t meeting certain academic expectations.
- April 30 is Decision Day — The Colorado Department of Higher Education honors the opportunities in all pathways, whether students attend a university, community college, private occupational school, an apprenticeship or serve in the military. You can learn more about Decision Day on the website.
- Teacher Appreciation Week is May 3 - 7. Colorado teachers have gone to extraordinary lengths to swiftly transition to supporting their students' learning at home. Colorado Teacher Appreciation Week is May 3-7, 2021 -— the perfect time for us to thank teachers for their tremendous dedication, creativity and problem solving during the pandemic.
- May is Mental Health Month — Mental Health America has released its May is Mental Health Month toolkit. This year’s toolkit focuses on the Tools 2 Thrive theme to provide strategies and tools to help us all move through the challenges faced during the last year and develop practices to help us thrive.
This mission of the Colorado Association of School Boards is to advance excellence in public education and equity for each and every student through effective leadership by the collective action of locally elected boards of education.
