Rural Colorado school districts that once served students online could see brunt of major state budget cuts
By Erica Breunlin | The Colorado Sun
As Colorado lawmakers try to solve a state budget crisis, Gov. Jared Polis’ office is advocating for a new set of changes to student averaging that would significantly impact a handful of rural school districts and charter schools that found a lifeline for their budgets by enrolling online homeschool students.
Vilas School District RE-5, in far southeastern Colorado, along with Plainview School District Re-2, about 100 miles to the north, and three Colorado Early Colleges campuses in recent years ran online enrichment programs for homeschool students with help from an outside vendor.
Those programs — which the districts and charter schools no longer operate — emerged during the pandemic, when the Colorado Department of Education relaxed rules a...