Colorado 2026 legislative roundup: The preschool, K-12, and higher education bills that passed and failed

“Sign up for Chalkbeat Colorado’s free daily newsletter to get the latest reporting from us, plus curated news from other Colorado outlets, delivered to your inbox. Colorado lawmakers avoided cuts to the core of public education funding this legislative session despite facing a significant budget shortfall. But with more financial challenges likely in the years ahead, it’s now on voters to decide whether public schools deserve more dollars than the status quo. A November ballot measure referred by lawmakers in Senate Bill 135 will ask voters if the state can keep part of their tax refund to fund K-12 schools. The state could also spend the extra money on key services such as healthcare and higher education. Colorado lawmakers avoid big cuts to public education Lawmakers referred the ballot measure to voters after a second year of needing to cut more than $1.2 billion from the state budget. That made it difficult to approve bills that required state spending. Despite the fiscal constraints, lawmakers did approve numerous education-related bills during the 120 day session. Many bills still require the governor’s signature. Among them is a new law to allow colleges and K-12 schools to request someone’s guns be temporarily confiscated, a new bilingualism endorsement for high school graduates, and a bill to create a new Department of Higher Education and Workforce Development . Legislators also approved a bill to allow the Colorado Department of Education to begin hearing 504 plan violations after parents complained that the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ process has lagged under the second Trump administration. Lawmakers also passed another bill regarding the state’s ability to hear civil rights issues in schools, although the bill was significantly scaled back. House Bill 1141 will expand educational discrimination definitions, such as making pregnancy or being a parent protected statuses. The bill also encourages but doesn’t require the state’s Civil Rights Division to hear school discrimination complaints. Here’s a roundup of other education bills that passed and failed this legislative session, which ended Wednesday. The education legislation approved How do the state’s most effecitve schools help students succeed? That’s the question Senate Bill 170 will require a task force to explore and report back on by next year. The bill was sponsored by Senate President James Coleman after pushback on an “education deserts” bill that would have allowed the state to authorize charter schools in communities with low-performing schools and without local school board agreement. House and Senate lawmakers approved two somewhat similar bills that would require social media companies to acknowledge a law enforcement warrant and give them a time period to comply . Lawmakers introduced the bills after two students were wounded in a shooting at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County. The shooter, a 16-year-old student who took his own life, had made suspicious social media posts before the shooting. Senate Bill 11 requires social media companies to acknowledge a warrant within eight hours but gives them 72 hours to comply. The more strict Senate Bill 1255 , which Gov. Jared Polis has threatened to veto , also requires social media companies to acknowledge a search warrant within eight hours, but gives an operator only 24 hours to comply under certain conditions. As part of the budget process, lawmakers filed the state’s School Finance Act in January , which was much earlier than in past years. Senate Bill 23 sets district and state funding levels at $10.2 billion in the 2026-27 school year . Two amendments added to the bill late in the legislative session will dramatically curtail the power of Boards of Cooperative Educational Services, also called BOCES, to authorize bricks and mortar schools or homeschool enrichment programs outside their member school districts. The powerful Joint Budget Committee also filed House Bill 1428 to require the Colorado Department of Education to provide a variety of information on publicly funded online learning and enrichment programming by Nov. 1. Due to budgetary constraints, lawmakers decided to phase out a program that extends high school so students can earn college credits toward a teaching degree. House Bill 1357 would allow one more group of high school students to enroll before it ends. And Colorado lawmakers cut back on how often school districts must administer the state’s Colorado Measures of Academic Success social studies test. Starting next year, only 7th graders will take it, per House Bill 1353 . House Bill 80 creates a Cradle to Career grant program within the Colorado Department of Human Services that would provide educational, extracurricular and social services support to children in poverty. The bill does not provide state funding for the grants. Instead, their availability will depend on charitable contributions from private groups, the federal government, or local governments. Teachers won’t have to disclose misdemeanor convictions that occurred in the last seven years if they don’t involve a student or at-risk adult under House Bill 1090 . Lawmakers also approved Senate Bill 103 requiring districts to share information on how they help at-risk students in their schools . Districts will also have an updated process to involve charter schools in local construction ballot measures after the passage of Senate Bill 145 . House Bill 1004 extends an existing tax credit for contributions to child care facilities for 10 more years. The law provides a tax credit of 50% of the value of the donation, up to $100,000. Municipalities could designate a roadway next to a school as a “school street” that’s closed to traffic or where the speed limit is 10 miles per hour under House Bill 1318 , which was inspired by a Littleton middle schooler who was fatally hit by a car while biking to school. Employees of Colorado’s facility schools, which serve some of the state’s most vulnerable students with the highest needs, will be able to get pension benefits through the state’s Public Employees Retirement Association under House Bill 1146 . Teachers will no longer have to create individualized readiness plans for kindergarten students who score proficiently on readiness tests under House Bill 1050 . Instead, the plans will be optional. The bill also requires the state to publicly report kindergarten readiness test scores disaggregated by school district, school, gender, race, and more. Colorado lawmakers revamped the state’s higher education funding formula in House Bill 1345 . The bill received pushback from private colleges after lawmakers cut $14.1 million from private student aid. Private college leaders said the cut, meant to be in effect for just one year, could open the door to a permanent loss of that funding. Colorado students taking college classes while in high school have only been able to take classes at four-year universities if they take the classes on the college campus. House Bill 1078 would allow high school students to take college-level courses offsite. Federal cuts have left universities that enroll high percentages of students of color without federal grant funding to support students. House Bill 1006 doesn’t include funding. But lawmakers hope that designating certain colleges as “ thriving institutions ” will show students of color that those campuses are a welcoming place. Most Colorado universities will now need to stock abortion medication at on-site health clinics under House Bill 1335 , which received final approval on the last day of session. House Bill 1142 gives civil immunity to board members, staff members, and volunteers at child advocacy groups if these individuals acted reasonably and in good faith in disclosing information about a child or during investigations of child maltreatment. Education bills that didn’t move forward Senate Bill 68 , designed to study how to reduce CMAS testing time , failed to advance. After facing concerns from Polis , lawmakers decided to indefinitely postpone House Bill 1292 , which would have required Colorado to place nondiscrimination rules on its use of a federal education tax credit program. Senate Bill 180 would have created a new investment authority that could seek higher returns on certain pots of state money than what state investments typically produce. Tens of millions of dollars from the higher yield investments would have been earmarked to help low-income families pay for childcare. But the bill faced opposition from Colorado’s state treasurer and other groups who said it was risky and possibly violated the state constitution. Lawmakers decided not to pursue the Building Excellent Teacher and Employee Residences Program in House Bill 139 . The $40 million pot of money would have provided financial assistance to districts for workforce housing projects. Lawmakers rejected a bill that would have raised money for public schools by subjecting microtransactions in online games to a 5% fee . House Bill 1148 was a wide-ranging bill aimed at enhancing data privacy for children on gaming platforms like Roblox and Minecraft. But lawmakers did pass a similar bill, House Bill 1418 , that will put the proceeds of the 5% fee toward youth mental health services. Colorado lawmakers rejected an attempt to change how school board members are elected . Instead of electing school board members at large, Senate Bill 57 would have restricted the pool of voters to those who live in the neighborhoods that the candidate would represent, similar to how Colorado elects its state representatives and congresspeople. A bill aimed at saving Colorado families money on back-to-school supplies failed to advance. House Bill 1048 would have made children’s clothing and school supplies exempt from the state’s 2.9% sales tax for one weekend in July. A similar bill also failed to advance in 2024. Lawmakers shelved Senate Bill 166 , which would have disqualified candidates from running for school board if they had a recent conviction for certain violent crimes or felony drug offenses. Colorado lawmakers rejected a bill to cut back on teacher evaluations . House Bill 1291 would have allowed teachers who are rated effective and who have Colorado’s version of tenure to be evaluated every three years instead of annually. A Denver lawmaker hoped to replicate a city program that gives students a free pass to recreational, museum, and cultural facilities. But House Bill 1055 didn’t advance. The bill, backed by Colorado students, would have allowed for the pilot program to give My Colorado Cards to grades 6-12 students in a limited number of communities. Jason Gonzales is a reporter covering higher education and the Colorado legislature. Chalkbeat Colorado partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. Contact Jason at jgonzales@chalkbeat.org . Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org . Ann Schimke is a senior reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Ann at aschimke@chalkbeat.org.

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