2018 Legislative Session
Date Posted: February 27, 2018
Intro
The Colorado Children’s Campaign serves as the leading voice for kids at the state Capitol and in communities across the state. In our 33-year history we’ve worked with policymakers from every corner of the state and every political perspective to improve the well-being of Colorado kids. Children’s issues aren’t partisan, and we’ve learned that we can develop innovative solutions to improve the lives of children and families when we work together.
As the 2018 session of the Colorado General Assembly begins, we’ve prepared the best available data and research on child well-being to help advocates and policymakers advance—and protect—policies and investments we know will provide the greatest benefits to kids.
Priorities
Child & Family Health Priorities
- Protecting quality, affordable health insurance coverage options for kids and families that provide access to physical, behavioral, and oral health care services, including preventive health services and maternity care.
- Ensuring that all women have access to the most reliable and effective birth control methods so that they can finish their education and chart their own futures, giving their children the best possible chance for success.
- Advancing initiatives that ensure every child gets a healthy start in life, including access to health services, ample amounts of nutritious foods and safe water, and access to healthy and safe places to live, learn and play.
- Protecting the Healthy Kids Colorado Survey, and other ways we track the well-being of Colorado’s youth, so local and state leaders and policymakers can identify concerning trends and track the success of public services.
Youth Success Priorities
- Advocating for a modernized, equitable school finance formula that targets investments to meet the needs of all students, especially children living in poverty, living in rural areas, learning English, or struggling to read.
- Advocating for a public revenue system that reduces property taxpayer inequality and reverses the unsustainable reliance on state (over local) revenue for education.
- Removing barriers to school lunches.
- Continuing and expanding access to a rigorous and robust set of course choices for all high school students, especially those in rural schools.
Early Childhood Priorities
- Improving access to, and affordability of, quality early care and education opportunities for children and families.
- Investing in our early childhood workforce by better recruiting, retaining, and rewarding early childhood educators.
- Promoting alternatives to the use of expulsion and suspension of children in preschool and the early elementary grades.
- Advancing two-generation strategies that improve children’s behavioral health and support parents.
Budget Priorities
- Renewing the Colorado Child Care Contribution Credit. This credit is critical in providing quality child care options for children across Colorado, and in particular kids in families facing the most barriers to economic security.
- Ensuring public school students have equal access to public school funds, no matter what public school they attend, by equalizing funding for Charter School Institute (CSI) schools that do not receive mill override revenues from their local school districts.
