Colorado is making the digital learning program Zearn Math available for free to schools statewide as part of a broader effort to address gaps in math learning that widened during the pandemic. According to Chalkbeat Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis has set aside up to $6 million in pandemic relief money to pay for licenses for the digital program and to pay for printed materials for schools that adopt Zearn’s math curriculum. Training also will be available to teachers on how to use the new platform. Math scores on state and national standardized tests declined during the pandemic, with sharper drops in math than in reading and writing. Both educators and policymakers are focused on how to help students gain skills they missed out on during three disrupted years.
Following the completion of scheduled renovations, the Montrose Municipal Court will reopen in its permanent home inside the Elks Civic Building at 107 South Cascade Avenue on Tuesday. To complete the move from the Montrose Public Safety Complex to the Elks Building, the court will be closed today. Since December, the court has been operating inside the Montrose Public Safety Complex at 434 South First Street. When the court reopens Tuesday, April 18, the court will resume normal operations with court staff available Monday through Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Thursday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Several East Middle School students will be attending West Middle School in Grand Junction this fall after the school’s closure, reports the Daily Sentinel. District Superintendent Brian Hill is navigating the closure of East Middle School and the formation of a committee that will dive into enrollment trends at elementary schools before providing a recommendation to the D51 Board of Education later this year. After East’s closure was approved by the school board, the district redrew its boundaries based on the data compiled by the district’s demographer. The district then sent that information and its updated boundaries to Mesa County, and once the county updated its map, the district updated the boundaries in Synergy, which identified which East students should be zoned to West and which students should be zoned to Bookcliff Middle School.
Advocacy groups including Colorado Sierra Club and Colorado Public Interest Research Group, Rocky Mountain NAACP and others gathered on the west steps of the Colorado Capitol on Wednesday to urge lawmakers to lower utility bills by decreasing reliance on natural gas, a volatile globally traded commodity. Eric Galatas has more.
Members of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission set up shop in Glenwood’s Hotel Colorado yesterday afternoon. As KDNK’s Morgan Neely reports for Rocky Mountain Community Radio, the board made it clear they were only there to listen to the public, not to debate.
