Colorado

Clayton Early Learning prepares young children for school through family-centered classrooms and home-based practices, research/program evaluation, and professional development. Clayton partners closely with The Colorado Children’s Campaign, which provides research, organizes an extensive statewide network of child advocates, and serves as the leading voice for kids at the state capitol.

State Allies:

Top Priorities for 2021

Lead early childhood stakeholders to design an expanded pre-k program, reimagine the future of child care, and support an ongoing comprehensive COVID-19 response.

Collaborate with partners to promote policies that support kids’ healthy development, family economic security, and equitable outcomes for Colorado’s earliest learners and their families.

Engage advocates and partners in advocacy and leadership development opportunities to elevate the profile of early childhood issues.

Colorado’s 2020 Early Childhood Policy Landscape and Progress:

$13.31B STATE BUDGET
Estimated FY20 State General Fund Expenditures

ALIGNED GOVERNMENT
House (D), Senate (D)
Governor (D)

30% LOW-INCOME
180,453 Young Children (0-8) are Below 200% FPL

Advocates entered the 2020 legislative session with several significant bipartisan policy initiatives and budget proposals to advance early childhood. Despite progress on the early childhood workforce, expanded home visiting, and family support, the pandemic required a quick pivot. COVID-19 flipped Colorado’s promising budget forecast to a $3.3 billion deficit.

Advocates still made incredible progress. One of Colorado’s greatest achievements may be additional funds for public schools and housing and expanded pre-k slots, resulting from a ballot measure that will phase in higher rates of taxation on tobacco products and a new tax on liquid nicotine.Advocates still made incredible progress. One of Colorado’s greatest achievements may be additional funds for public schools and housing and expanded pre-k slots, resulting from a ballot measure that will phase in higher rates of taxation on tobacco products and a new tax on liquid nicotine.

Fully funds preschool for all children the year before kindergarten with tobacco and nicotine revenue, with additional investments in children from families with low incomes or facing barriers to school readiness. At full implementation, this will be $250M per year for pre-k. Goal is to reduce youth tobacco use and raise money for public schools, housing supports, and the expansion of the Colorado Preschool Program in 2023.
HB20-1053 helps recruit and retain early childhood educators, support early childhood mental health, and improve quality.
H1237 provides that for a child who obtains services under the state’s Medicaid program through the initiation of a dependency and neglect action or juvenile delinquency action, the Department of Health Care Policy and Financing is directed to assign the child to the managed care entity in the county in which the action was initiated (NCSL).
SB20-028 modifies how the determination of child abuse, neglect or dependency is determined in situations involving alcohol or substance exposure in support of keeping families together.
HB20-1347 reauthorized law passed in 2017 allowing for Family, Friend, and Neighbor Child care (FFN) providers to watch up to four unrelated children. Given the lack of licensed child care options and given the pandemic, support for FFN providers continues to be an important priority.
S205 requires employers to provide employees with paid sick leave for COVID-19-related reasons through 2020 and requires that by January 1, 2021, all Colorado employers provide paid sick leave to their employees at the rate of one accrued hour for every 30 hours of work up to a maximum of 48 hours (NCSL).
HB20-1048 protects people from discrimination based on traits related to one’s race, such as hair texture, hair type, and/or protective hairstyles. Young Black, Indigenous, and People of Color can experience exclusionary practices for child care, preschool, and school due to discrimination around their hair or how they wear their hair.
SB20-163 will improve state vaccination rates by standardizing the immunization exemption process and requiring schools to proactively notify parents of school immunization rates. It also supports public health vaccination efforts.
SB20-200 creates a secure retirement savings plan run by the state or intermediary to increase access to retirement savings for people who do not receive this benefit through work, such as child care providers.
HB20-1418 sets funding levels for public schools and resets the way the state calculates a school district’s property tax rate, creating a structure to reduce taxpayer inequality between districts.
SB029 allocates up to $10M from the TANF Long-term Reserve to provide every family receiving Basic Cash Assistance via TANF with a one-time payment of $500. SB029 amended original bill to provide a one-time payment of $500 to TANF recipients in response to COVID-19.
An increase of $10.5M for Department of Human Services to continue to provide quality child care via CCCAP. The $10.5M line comes from the total CARES Act funding of $42M distributed for sustainability grants, parent fees in child care subsidy program, covering absences in the Colorado Child Care Assistance Program (CCCAP), and early childhood mental health consultants.
A $5.6M budget increase to CCCAP to support access to quality early care and education for working families and to support providers facing challenges during the pandemic. The $5.6M increase in CCCAP included an annualized amount of $2.8M state General Fund and $2.8M required local match county funds.
Child Health Plan Plus: $26.2M increase in state General Fund appropriations to ensure children and pregnant people do not lose coverage during the health crisis.
Directed CARES Act funding to be used to reimburse for increased absence days, closures, or to pay based on enrollment for families receiving CCCAP support; also to support more affordable or waived parental fees CCCAP, provide additional early childhood mental health supports through consultants, and grant funds to licensed child care providers to assist with costs associated with COVID-19.
Defeated potential cuts to tuition-free full-day kindergarten.
Defeated four bills that would have weakened immunization standards. If not defeated, these would have significantly limited the ability of government and community-based service providers to protect and promote public health through vaccinations.
Defeated potential cuts to the Colorado Preschool Program.
The Children’s Campaign was asked by the Governor’s Office and CDHS to partner with Gary Community Investments and Nanno (a child care placement business) to quickly generate a vehicle to connect demand for emergency child care with providers. In less than five days, Colorado built a model, created a financing approach, raised philanthropic funds, and executed placement of hundreds of families in emergency child care settings. More than 500 providers and 5,500 families benefitted from a rapidly developed and deployed approach to providing free child care to essential workers from March through May.

*Early childhood policy progress in a state is the result of numerous efforts — by those listed on this page and many others — who worked both independently and collaboratively to achieve wins for young children.

More from Colorado:

Alliance for Early Success early childhood policy mark

Five States Announced as Recipients of Major New Child Care NEXT Transformation Grants

July 28, 2021

The Alliance for Early Success has announced that five states have been selected for Child Care NEXT, an initiative to support in-state coalitions that are ready to mount long-term campaigns to achieve transformative change in their state’s child-care policies and funding.

16 States Selected as Finalists for Child Care NEXT Transformation Grants

June 24, 2021

After receiving dozens of applications and collecting feedback on them from diverse review teams, the Alliance for Early Success (the Alliance) announced today that 16 states are finalists for Child Care NEXT — a grant program to support transformational change in a state’s child-care system.

Download the full 50-State report.

The Alliance for Early Success 2020 50-State Progress Report on Early Childhood Policy expands state data (disaggregating low-income young children by race) and provides high-level state policy trend analysis for the nation as a whole. Click the icon to download the report.

State Budget Data: National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), “Table 4: Fiscal 2020 State General Fund, Estimated (Millions); The Fiscal Survey of the States.” Spring, 2020

Low-Income Data (including disaggregation by race): National Center for Children in Poverty, “NCCP Analysis of ACS 1-year Estimates—Public Use Microdata Sample, 2019.”

State Action Data: Provided by state advocates, October-November 2020, with analysis and synthesis by Frontera Strategy for Alliance for Early Success, “Protecting Progress and Investing in Scale: The 2020 50-State Progress Report on Early Childhood Education Policy.”

Additional State Actions: Mincic, Melissa, Early Care and Education, State Budget Actions, Fiscal Year 2020. National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), October 2020.