House Education Committee advances bill to create framework for K–5 social-emotional program funding

The House Education Committee voted 7–5, with one member excused, to send Senate Bill 178 to the Committee of the Whole with a favorable recommendation after a hearing that advanced a framework for folding state social-emotional learning grant programs into the school finance formula.

Senate Bill 178, sponsored in the hearing by Representative Gilchrist, “is about building a stronger, more effective framework for funding programs that support the social and emotional health of our youngest students,” Gilchrist told the panel. The bill would authorize the Colorado Department of Education (CDE) to adopt rules for incorporating existing competitive K–5 social-emotional learning grants into the school finance formula if the General Assembly later elects to include those programs in annual school finance decisions.

Committee members and witnesses said the measure aims to consolidate a set of competitive grants that have developed piecemeal over decades. Jordan Posamenteir, vice president of policy and partnerships at the nonprofit…