Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside an Aurora police building Saturday to call for justice in the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man put into a chokehold by police last year.

McClain’s death last August has prompted a handful of small protests over the last 10 months, but his case has garnered renewed attention amid a global outcry sparked when George Floyd died under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer May 25.

Saturday’s demonstrations in Aurora were organized by the Denver chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Denver Post reported. They began with a march and rally, which were expected to be followed by a youth-led protest and a violin vigil.

One protester, 25-year-old Franklin Williams, came to show support and make sure the fervor continues.

“This shouldn’t be a moment,” Williams said. “This should be a movement.”

Social media posts of the protests early Saturday afternoon showed crowds of people demonstrating peacefully while police forces stood by wearing tactical gear. At one point, demonstrators gathered on Interstate 225.

Some in the crowd chanted, “Why are you in riot gear? We don’t see no riot here.”

Marchers walked behind a banner reading, “Justice for Elijah McClain, murdered by Aurora police.”

Police in Aurora responded to a call of a suspicious person wearing a ski mask and waving his arms as he walked down a street on Aug. 24. They say McClain refused to stop walking and fought back when officers confronted him and tried to take him into custody.

“I have a right to stop you because you’re being suspicious,” an officer is heard on a body camera recording telling McClain. The encounter happened as McClain, a certified massage therapist and self-taught violin player, was running an errand.

To subdue McClain, officers used a chokehold that cuts off blood to the brain — a tactic recently banned in several places in the wake of Floyd’s death. Paramedics arrived soon after and administered a sedative to calm McClain down. McClain suffered cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital and was later declared brain dead. He was taken off life support less than a week later.

Three officers were placed on leave but returned to the force after District Attorney Dave Young said there was insufficient evidence to support charging them.

Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday ordered prosecutors to reopen the investigation.

MORE: Colorado governor names special prosecutor to investigate death of Elijah McClain

Police in Aurora issued a statement Saturday before the event began saying they support a peaceful protest and warning of “outsiders” with destructive goals. Protest organizers said the police response was concerning.

“The Aurora Police Department has responded by circulating rumors of a ‘violent threat’ in order to intimidate organizers and attendees and to justify mobilizing a militarized police response to crack down on protesters,” the Party for Socialism and Liberation said in a statement posted to Facebook.

By Jon Pompia, The Pueblo Chieftain

Colorado State Fair organizers are moving forward with a re-imagined expo this year amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Scott Stoller, the fair’s general manager, received unanimous support last week from the event’s board of authority to move forward with a pared-down celebration that respects health directives limiting the number of people that can gather in one place at one time, the Pueblo Chieftain reported.

The board supported Stoller’s recommendation to cancel all entertainment events in the events center, grandstand arena and on the fairgrounds. The popular Crabtree Amusements carnival has not yet been ruled out, and organizers are considering spacing out the rides and attractions throughout the fairgrounds.

Keeping a carnival would preserve a portion of the “spirit” of the annual expo, which is slated to run Aug. 28 through Sept. 7, Stoller said.

All entrance fees would be waived at this year’s fair.

“Faced with an incredibly difficult decision, and with a deep understanding of its far-reaching impact, the board carefully considered state guidance that is being developed for outdoor events and potential health risk to our fair visitors, competitors and vendors before voting,” said fair board chair Paul Youngs.

The fair in Pueblo will focus on 4-H and FFA events that could include a modified Junior Livestock Show and Sale, FFA Heifer Wrangle, Catch-a-Calf, 4-H Horse Show, 4-H Dog Show, 4-H Rocketry and 4-H Static Exhibits. Some exhibits, as well as limited food and vendor booths and virtual competitive exhibits, have been proposed.

Fair organizers say they will limit the amount of people at indoor and outdoor events to comply with state and local health guidelines.

Modifying the fair is expected to have a negative financial impact of between $600,000 and $1 million, but Stoller and board of authority members argue it’s vital for the fair to continue to have a presence, even if it is limited.

“The responsible approach is to remain as relevant as possible,” said board of authority member Brian Coppom.

This is not the first time the Colorado State Fair has been modified due to extraordinary circumstances.

In 1917, the State Fairground property was used as “Camp Carlson,” with the horse stables and open space serving as a training facility for the Army National Guard during World War I.

Since April 22, the grounds have been operating as a drive-thru coronavirus testing site for Pueblo County.

When the pandemic shutdown hit, Jason Badgley sent his 16 employees home and locked the doors at his newly expanded Phunkshun Wear manufacturing shop. 

Two weeks later on April 3, Gov. Jared Polis asked Coloradans to start wearing masks and slipped a custom-made covering over his face. The Phunkshun label was just below his right eye, and business at the 9-year-old Colorado company whipped a speedy U-turn. 

“And now we had Gov. Polis wearing our mask. This wasn’t a normal practice … he was leading by example and it triggered a shift in our everyday behavior,” said Badgley, Phunkshun’s chief executive officer. “His display resonated and we saw a lot of inquiries. A lot.”

Phunkshun was born in 2011 in Summit County and moved to Denver in 2014. The company’s customizable ski masks and balaclavas, designed and produced in Colorado using material made with recycled plastic bottles, have become ubiquitous on the slopes. Now, after idling his stable of highly skilled cut-and-sew artisans in the third week of March, Badgley’s business is booming as he crafts thousands of his newly designed personal-hygiene masks that meet federal recommendations for slowing the spread of the coronavirus. (Phunkshun made a bunch of face coverings for The Colorado Sun, too.)

For every one he sells, another is donated to the Colorado Mask Project. 

“We are so lucky to be busy right now, let alone able to find financial stability in this difficult time,” Badgley said. “But we recognized as we came back that we needed to give back. No one wants to be a pandemic profiteer. But if we can find that financial stability and offer reassurances for our employees and contribute to the well-being of the community, it’s a good thing to do.”

The entire Phunkshun team is spread across 18,000 square feet in an unassuming complex on the border of the Stapleton neighborhood. Sewers and their machines are tucked into former office space to keep everyone distanced. And, in a twist that Badgley hopes to maintain as the pandemic fades, he’s recruiting cut-and-sew artisans across Denver to help. The list includes tailors, bridal shops and a venerable window-covering business.

“It’s been a learning experience,” said Melissa Conners, the owner of Paramount Fabrics, the 50-year-old window-coverings shop in Arvada. She was able to bring back five employees for evening shifts to help Badgley make masks. 

Conners’ team has never made apparel. But because the masks were already cut and ready to sew, she was able to use idled employees who worked more on the assembly side for those, while her seamstresses focused on window coverings. 

“He really gave us an opportunity to bring back some people who weren’t working,” she said. 

Conners, who has spent more than 30 years in Colorado’s window-covering business, bought DSC Window Fashions from its longtime owner last fall. She moved Paramount Fabrics into DSC’s 25,000-square-foot Arvada building in the third week of February. 

“And coronavirus ran us out in the third week of March,” she said. “This was a very expensive and scary situation and we were just getting going when the coronavirus hit.”

Conners said she’s hardly getting rich making masks, but she’s able to keep her skilled workers on the payroll. 

“Our seamstresses are artisans and they have a skill that is disappearing,” said Conners, who has hired the children of her most veteran seamstresses to work in her window covering shop. “They are really hard to find, and I definitely want to keep them as employees.”

Conners hopes to pursue more opportunities in the apparel world. Like Badgley, she’s learning how broad the cut-and-sew community is in Colorado, with similarly skilled workers spread across all sorts of industries. 

“I think these new relationships we are making will last. The world is now very different and certain things in life are going to be more important than others and you want to be able to change as the world changes,” she said. “Window coverings might not be as important with all this going on, so if there are other opportunities out there we want to be able to adapt.”

Badgley and company owner Lanny Goldwasser built Phunkshun for skiers and snowboarders. They’ve expanded their insulated, water-repellent, technical fabrics into sun-protection for anglers and more fashionable scarves. So the shift to personal-hygiene masks was not a big leap. The design for the non-medical-grade masks started when they were contacted by Polis’ office for a sample he could wear when he announced his statewide push for masks. 

Polis was one of the first governors to trumpet masks and the video from his press conference stirred a deluge of calls to Phunkshun. 

The Phunkshun manufacturing shop is making more masks than ever before. They are part of an army of Colorado manufacturers who switched gears to make personal protection equipment for health care workers in the past two months. 

The face-covering effort has been orchestrated by the Colorado Mask Project, which was created by Delanie Holton-Fessler and her friends. She owns a Denver craft studio called The Craftsman & Apprentice. 

Within a week of closing the studio in mid-March, she and her friends had connected dozens of businesses and hundreds of sewers to create the Colorado Mask Project.

“We are business owners and we are busy all the time and suddenly we didn’t have anything to do and this was something we could attach ourselves to and do some concrete good,” Holton-Fessler said. “We saw this need to make mask-wearing cool and we needed people to make them so we rounded up everyone we knew.”

Since late March, the Colorado Mask Project has made and distributed more than 100,000 masks to health care workers, essential business and vulnerable populations. 

Read more outdoors stories from The Colorado Sun.

“This became a vast network very quickly and it’s growing every day,” said Holton-Fessler.  

Volunteer groups also emerged to provide another source of masks. It’s a network of connections that Badgley expects will last well beyond the pandemic. The biggest challenge so far, Badgley said, has been maintaining a steady supply of raw materials from suppliers enduring their own challenges. That bottleneck led to what he called “the great elastic shortage of 2020.”

“Everyone was calling each other. Did you find any elastic? Did you find anyone?” he said. “Everyone was scrambling.”

But a supplier for over-the-ears elastic was eventually found and the Colorado mask mission remained on track in a unified effort that includes hundreds of independent sewers in their homes, sewing clubs, manufacturers and diverse businesses like tailors, trade-show display developers and awning builders. 

“Should there be a resurgence of a need to procure more masks, we are better equipped for a second round,” Badgley said. “It’s not like anyone in the cut-and-sew world had a playbook for what to do when something like this happens. But with the connections that have been made in the last few months, we are more prepared if it happens again.”

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters here: ckbe.at/newsletters

Police officers will be phased out of working in Denver’s public schools over the next year, with all school resource officers gone from middle and high schools by June 2021.

The Denver school board voted unanimously Thursday to end Denver Public Schools’ contract with the Denver Police Department to provide school resource officers. The vote comes after weeks of local and nationwide protests against racist policing sparked by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis.

“What we saw in our streets was a reaction to what we will no longer tolerate,” said board Vice President Jennifer Bacon, who drafted the resolution to end the police contract along with board member Tay Anderson. “This topic is not new or knee-jerk.”

The vote represents a victory for community activists who have pressed the district for more than a decade to remove sworn officers from campus because of the higher rate at which students of color are referred to law enforcement.

The $720,000 contract with Denver police provided the district with 18 school resource officers this past school year. The district also has its own force of more than 100 unarmed and armed campus security officers who will continue to provide security for Denver schools.

Before the board voted Thursday, it heard both from educators, parents, and community members who support removing police from schools and those who don’t.

Read the rest of the story here.

The number of new deaths and cases of the coronavirus at Colorado nursing homes and senior care centers continues to slow, but public health officials cautioned on Wednesday that the state has not yet “turned a corner.” 

New deaths of nursing home and senior care center residents with coronavirus totaled 42 over the past week, according to data released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

The weekly deaths were as high as 100 in April and May but have been declining in recent weeks. 

Still, the impact of the virus at nursing homes across the state has been severe: More than 160 senior facilities are listed on the state’s outbreak list, 838 residents have died, and more than 3,000 residents have either tested positive or have probable infections. 

Among nursing home and senior care center workers, there have been about 2,400 confirmed and probable cases of the virus and four deaths. 

The active outbreaks include 19 confirmed and probable coronavirus deaths and 66 confirmed and probable cases among residents of the Veterans Community Living Center at Fitzsimmons in Aurora. As many as 30 staff at the facility also have contracted the disease.

MORE: See a list of coronavirus deaths and infections at Colorado nursing homes and senior care centers

“It’s very important to remind all of us that this is not over, even though the curve has been flattened,” Randy Kuykendall, director of health facilities for the state health department, said during a remote news briefing. 

“We are seeing a decrease in the deaths and the number of cases is slowing. I think it’s all part and parcel of flattening the curve. I don’t think we’ve turned a corner. We’re in for, I think, a long battle with this disease until such a time as vaccinations come along.”

After weeks of improvement, the department is working on a “phase 2” plan that would relax the strict no-visitor policy for nursing homes and senior care centers put in place by Gov. Jared Polis in March. Details are expected to come soon from the governor’s office, said Kuykendall, whose division oversees inspections of the state’s 232 nursing homes and thousands of other facilities.  

Nursing home residents have been using iPads to visit virtually with their family and friends, but the three-month no-visitor policy is taking a toll on their mental health, Kuykendall said.

“Change is coming and is nearby,” he said. “We are extremely aware of the negative side of the restrictions that are in place right now.” 

The next phase for nursing homes could include requiring family members to have a negative test result for COVID-19 before coming to see their loved ones, he said. State health officials who sit on a task force working on containing the spread of the virus in nursing homes and other facilities are writing a proposal to present to the governor’s office, he said. 

All nursing homes in the state have received at least one infection control inspection during the outbreak, Kuykendall said. Public health officials are optimistic, but guarded, about next steps, he said.

“We are not out of the woods yet,” he said. “The disease is still active in the facilities.”

The state is still working to make sure nursing homes have enough masks, eye protection, gloves and gowns. Smaller facilities across the state have struggled to find enough personal protective equipment because they don’t have the purchasing power of the larger companies, public health officials said. 

Other outbreaks

The state health department is tracking outbreaks — defined as two cases within 14 days — not only at senior care centers, but also at jails and prisons, restaurants, retail stores and food-manufacturing plants. 

The businesses on the list this week include: 

• JBS meat-packing plant, Greeley, 278 cases and six deaths
• Cargill Meat Solutions, Morgan County, 96 cases and four deaths
• Custom Made Meats, Adams County, 27 cases
• Mountain King Potatoes, Rio Grande County, 25 cases
• McKesson Medical Supply, Denver, 20 cases
• Colorado Mushroom Farm, Alamosa, 18 cases
• Food King, Weld County, 14 cases
• Carniceria Leonela, El Paso County, nine cases
• Epicurean Butter, Adams County, nine cases

There also have been outbreaks of the virus at five King Soopers locations, including two in Denver, two in Jefferson County, and one in Adams County. Dozens of workers have been infected and two have died.

COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, also continues to be a problem in jails and prison.

More than 550 inmates at the Sterling Correctional Facility in northeast Colorado have tested positive for the virus. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment says three of them have died. 

In addition, 35 staff members at the prison have either tested positive for the disease or are considered to have probable infections.

The Sterling Correctional Facility outbreak is the largest in the state.

At the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Aurora, 13 detainees have tested positive for the coronavirus. The facility is run by GEO, a private corrections company. 

The U.S. government announced Wednesday that all inmates at the detention center will be tested for the disease. Results are expected in about a week.

Colorado’s casinos will start reopening next week, but the opening for gambling halls idled since mid-March won’t include big crowds or table games. 

Cripple Creek’s 12 casinos will open June 15 and the 23 casinos in Central City and Black Hawk will open June 17 after shutting down because of the coronavirus more than two months ago. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment on Sunday granted variance requests allowing Gilpin and Teller counties to open their casinos.

State health director Jill Hunsaker Ryan approved Gilpin County’s 50-page variance request on Sunday, but tempered the county’s hopes for a swift return by prohibiting table games and capping the number of gamblers at 175 “in a confined indoor space.”

Teller County officials had asked the state health department for a variance allowing it to open its casinos in May but the health department declined, keeping bars and gambling halls closed while allowing the county to open restaurants and gyms. 

Gilpin County casinos and officials had knocked around the idea that maybe the smaller casinos could open a few days before the larger halls in Black Hawk, as a way to help give the independent operators a head start in making up lost revenue. But after watching casinos open in Las Vegas and Reno, Nevada last week, they decided it was best to open everything at once. 

“When casinos opened in other states, they all saw huge pent-up demand. People were standing in line at the doors,” said Gilpin County Commissioner Ron Engels. “We did not want our smaller casinos overrun the day they opened, so everyone agreed that the 17th for everyone was going to be a better solution.”

EARLIER: Colorado casinos went bust when coronavirus hit. Here’s why they see a lucky streak ahead.

At first glance, the state health department’s cap of 175 indoor gamblers troubled the owners of the state’s largest casinos, like the 1,250-slot machine, 523-room Ameristar Casino Resort or the 1,200 slot-machine Monarch Casino Resort Spa. With massive gambling halls spread across multiple floors, the larger casinos can easily maintain the health department’s rule for 28 square feet per visitor with many more guests than 175. 

“It’s not 175 per building. So each floor could be a confined indoor space,” said David Fahari, the chief operating officer of Monarch Casino Resort, which also has a casino that opened in Reno last week. 

Fahari said his team was configuring layouts that could keep gamblers socially distanced while hosting many more than 175. His casino in Reno saw eager guests ready to return to the slots and tables last week when Nevada officials allowed gambling to return. 

“I think we will see more of the same here in Colorado,” Fahari said. “We are spending the next 10 days training and testing our teams so we can make everything as safe as possible for our guests and employees.”

The state’s approval of casino openings includes limits of 50% of the allowed occupancy not to exceed 175 indoors or 250 outdoors. Employees must be monitored for symptoms. Facilities and buses must be regularly cleaned and the closing of slots can’t intentionally improve the odds in favor of the house. Gambling tables are not allowed but public health officials will revisit table games in three weeks. 

“I appreciate your thoughtful approach to these challenging issues,” Hunsaker Ryan wrote to both Teller and Gilpin county officials.

In Gilpin County, where only five people have tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the casino opening could be rescinded with more positive cases. If the county sees only two unlinked cases in a two-week period and cannot eliminate those cases in two weeks, the variance is rescinded. 

Colorado’s casinos delivered $38.92 million taxes to Colorado in March, April and May last year as gamblers lost $213.5 million. This March, casinos were open 16 days and paid $5.1 million in gambling taxes after taking in $31.9 million from losing gamblers. 

There were zero gambling taxes paid in April and maybe a pittance was paid by freshly legalized online sports-betting operations in May, when casinos remained closed. That decline of nearly $34 million in gambling taxes since casinos closed in mid-March has wreaked havoc on the state’s budget. 

The pandemic’s impact on casinos has yet to be seen. In the past month, some smaller casinos have worried they might not survive the shutdown. 

“That’s been a huge concern, particularly for the smaller casinos but I have not heard of any that are not going to reopen,” said Peggi O’Keefe with the Colorado Gaming Association. “I’m hopeful that folks will be able to make up for lost ground. It’s a 50% occupancy cap, so I’m hoping that’s enough for even our smaller casinos to get their employees back and get customers back up. We feel really comfortable that the plan we have in place will be successful and we will be able to educate them to the new rules and regulations.”

Several local public health agencies in Colorado are sharing information with emergency dispatchers about households where people have tested positive for the new coronavirus. 

The agencies say the practice provides a warning to first responders to take extra precautions when dispatched to those homes, but privacy advocates are raising concerns.

Authorities in Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Denver, Douglas and El Paso counties confirmed to The Colorado Sun that they follow the practice, first brought to light Tuesday in a national Associated Press investigation. The AP found that coronavirus information sharing between public health officials and emergency dispatchers is widespread across the U.S. 

“It’s just another layer of protection first responders can be armed with when they are going to those calls for service,” said Jacqueline Kirby, a spokeswoman for the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.

Sharing the information is legal under state and federal law, officials say, but privacy experts worry that doing so is dangerous and unnecessary and that it could even lead to a situation where people are afraid to seek out testing out of fear that their medical history may be disclosed. 

“It seems to me it’s just a pointless invasion of privacy that really serves no purpose,” said Mark Silverstein, legal director of the ACLU of Colorado. 

Silverstein said that since so many people who have the virus have been unable to get testing, and with a large share of those infected not showing symptoms, first responders really should be assuming that they are coming into contact with someone who has the disease on every call. 

“When we sacrifice some privacy for some government purpose, we have to balance: How important is the purpose that’s going to be achieved and does that outweigh the invasion of privacy?” Silverstein said. “Here, there’s just no way that disclosure can serve to really protect first responders.” 

Silverstein worries that public safety departments in Colorado may not have set guidelines and standards for how to handle people’s medical history, not to mention rules around potential abuses of that information. He also wonders if people who are tested for the disease are warned that their medical information could be shared with law enforcement. 

“It seems that disclosure should be an important part of the testing procedure,” Silverstein said. 

The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment said that early in the crisis it asked for guidance from the attorney general’s office on sharing infection information with first responders. But Ian Dickson, a spokesman for the department, says the information sharing is now “irrelevant due to the large number of positive cases” and because the virus is being spread through community transmission.

Dickson said the state never shared information with first responders and that the practice was only done at the local level. “This information was only intended to be shared on an as-needed basis for the safety of first responders as they responded to calls,” he said. “It would be inappropriate for law enforcement agencies to access and use the data to target individuals for enforcement.”

But despite the state saying the information sharing is no longer necessary, The Sun found a number of agencies still follow the practice. 

Kirby said public health officials don’t give the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office the names of people who test positive for coronavirus, just the addresses they are associated with. She said deputies are instructed to don personal protective equipment — known as PPE — when responding to every call. PPE is of secondary importance when deputies are responding urgently to emergencies, she said.

In terms of privacy concerns, Kirby said law enforcement officers deal every day with sensitive personal information and take seriously their responsibility to safeguard the data. Those who breach that responsibility are investigated by internal affairs. 

“We understand what the dangers and the repercussions of sharing that sensitive information could be,” she said.

Tri-County Health Department, which covers Adams, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, says it has been sharing infection information with the sheriff’s offices in its jurisdiction since early in the pandemic. They have only ever provided addresses, however, and the information is transmitted through encrypted email with a warning that state and federal law requires the data to be held strictly confidential.

“While we always recommended that the first responder utilize appropriate precautions, this was something we were utilizing since it was such a new pandemic we were dealing with,” said Michele Askenazi, Tri-County’s director of emergency response, preparedness and communicable disease surveillance. 

After March, when it became clear there was community transmission, Arapahoe County ceased its request for the information sharing. But Tri-County has continued to send the infection data to Adams and Douglas counties on a “daily basis,” Askenazi said.

Askenazi said the information sharing is revisited every month. 

Cmdr. Mike Wagner at the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office says Boulder County Public Health began sharing information with emergency dispatch centers at the request of public safety officials. 

“We receive very limited information,” Wagner said. 

Namely, dispatchers are given an address where someone has been confirmed to have the coronavirus along with a date that the record of their infection can be “purged from our files.” Names are not provided, he said.

“If fire/EMS/law enforcement are dispatched to an address with a confirmed COVID-19 case, this allows the responders to don the proper PPE prior to entering the residence or making contact with anyone inside,” he said. “The information was provided due to lack of PPE for all calls, so this allowed first responders to use the stronger PPE when a confirmed risk was being encountered.”

The Denver Department of Public Health and Environment shares only addresses where people infected with coronavirus live, leaving out names, the agency says. 

A spokeswoman for the city said the goal is to make sure first responders “are aware and can don the appropriate protective gear if they are called to that address.”

The Associated Press found that public health officials in at least two thirds of U.S. states are sharing the addresses of people who tested positive with first responders — from police officers to firefighters to EMTs.

Public health officials in at least 10 states, according to the AP, go further and also share the names: Colorado, Iowa, Louisiana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Tennessee. Wisconsin did so briefly but stopped earlier this month. There have been 287,481 positive cases in those states, mostly in New Jersey.

The Colorado Sun did not find a public health agency in the state that was sharing both the addresses and names of people infected with coronavirus with first responders. The Associated Press did not say which Colorado public health agency is or was giving names of people infected with coronavirus to first responders. 

According to the national Fraternal Order of Police, more than 100 police officers in the United States have died from the coronavirus. Hundreds more have tested positive, resulting in staffing crunches.

A 41-year-old El Paso County Sheriff’s deputy, Jeff Hopkins, died in April of the coronavirus. He worked in the county’s jail. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters here: ckbe.at/newsletters

By Jason Gonzales, Chalkbeat Colorado

Federal assistance meant to lessen the economic blow of COVID-19 on Colorado’s colleges isn’t fully meeting the needs of their neediest students and comes with restrictions that limit the ability of schools to shore up finances, say school leaders.

In particular, the regulations put institutions that serve large numbers of part-time students at a disadvantage.

“The whole implementation of the CARES Act has really not been very good,” said Heidi Markey, Adams State University’s financial aid director, talking about the coronavirus relief bill.

In total, the state’s institutions received $173.3 million from the CARES Act — $144.5 million for public institutions and $28.8 million for privately operated schools.

Schools must allocate half the money to students. And the half for institutions carries restrictions.

The reporting measures allow little flexibility for schools in how they can spend money and create disparities in how students get money. And the U.S. Department of Education guidance restricts student eligibility and excludes institutions that serve high numbers of part-time students.

“The way it sounded was it was almost too good to be true: Here’s the bill, here’s the money, now go out and use it,” said Cheryl Lovell, Adams State University president. “And then it went through the process of getting guidance and regulations (from the U.S. Department of Education) and it kind of narrowed the focus quite a bit.”

Read the rest of the story here.

The Colorado legislature has pushed back the date it will resume lawmaking until late May. 

The General Assembly was set to resume the 2020 legislative session on May 18 after taking a months-long pause because of the new coronavirus. But on Saturday, Democratic leadership in the House and Senate announced that the reopening will now be on May 26.

When lawmakers return to the Capitol they will have a full plate, including balancing a state budget that has been dramatically reduced by the economic effects of the pandemic. They will also try to pass policies to help Coloradans better get through coronavirus.

 “With so much at risk and our desired return date fast approaching, we determined that it would benefit all Coloradans if we gave our budgetary and legislative process a bit more breathing room,” Senate President Leroy Garcia, a Pueblo Democrat, said in a written statement. “Though facing our dire fiscal situation has been a painful task, we are committed to protecting our most critical institutions and vulnerable populations as best as we possibly can. We look forward to continuing to fight for our communities in the Capitol when we all return.”

Lawmakers must pass a budget before July, when the next fiscal year begins.

House Speaker KC Becker, D-Boulder, said the extra time will also allow the legislature to better prepare safety procedures for its return.

“As businesses across Colorado also begin the process of reopening, this extension allows the General Assembly additional time to double check our safety protocols, continue conversations on appropriate legislation and seek more information about any Congressional action that may be coming in the weeks ahead,” Becker said in a written statement. “We are hopeful that Congress may provide additional and badly needed aid to help us avoid budget cuts that will devastate our communities.”

Becker, in an interview with The Colorado Sun on Saturday night, said after a two-month break it takes time to get going again. She likened the General Assembly to a car that hasn’t been run for several weeks.

“It’s actually going to take a little time to tune it up to get it back into shape,” she said. “It doesn’t just turn over.”

Republicans were critical of the delay.

“Senate Republicans have heard from constituents across the state who have rightly demanded that their voice be heard and that balance be restored in our state government,” said Senate Minority Leader Chris Holbert, a Parker Republican, said in a written statement. “We have reassured those constituents that Democrats, who hold majority control of both legislative chambers, planned to return on May 18. Now, with no advance notice, we learn that Democrat leadership has decided to keep the voice of our constituents silenced until May 26.”

Sen. Paul Lundeen, a Monument Republican, said the list of issues needing legislative action are growing. “To delay the essential business of the General Assembly magnifies the difficulty of returning safely to normal,” he said in a written statement.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat, a nonprofit news organization covering public education. Sign up for their newsletters here: ckbe.at/newsletters

Gov. Jared Polis took office last year with an ambitious early childhood agenda. In addition to free statewide full-day kindergarten, he sought a major expansion of Colorado’s state-funded preschool program.

Now, everything from the state’s day-to-day priorities to its economic forecast has shifted, throwing the state’s preschool gains and plans for the future into question.

It’s a common storyline around the country right now, and national experts are worried that rollbacks in state-funded preschool seats and quality improvements will come at a time when more children than ever need strong early education programs.

W. Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the National Institute of Early Education Research at Rutgers University, said, “The COVID-19 pandemic and the current and looming economic crisis pose considerable threat to state-funded pre-K.”

Asked about the likelihood of a new dedicated federal funding stream to protect public preschool enrollment and quality initiatives — one recommendation in a report released Wednesday by the research institute — Barnett didn’t sound particularly optimistic.

“Greater than zero is my best estimate,” he said. “The opportunity is to put some kind of set-aside in a larger pool [of money], whether it’s education dollars or human services dollars.”

In Colorado, where lawmakers are preparing for a budget hit of as much as $3 billion, the potential impact on recent early childhood gains is unclear.

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