They Cannot Wait for Washington: Why Colorado Must Pass SB26-125

Written By Pro-CO Education Project
Students with disabilities in Colorado public schools rely on federal civil rights laws like the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Section 504. But as federal enforcement slows, families increasingly face delays and costly legal disputes when schools fail to provide required services. Colorado House Bill 26-125 proposes a state-level pathway to resolve these conflicts earlier. Jessica Capsel with the Pro-Colorado Education Project explains why Colorado cannot wait for Washington to act.

They Can’t Wait for Washington. Colorado Must Act Now.

A child in a wheelchair deserves a ramp. A child who cannot hear deserves an interpreter. A child who learns differently deserves a teacher who meets them where they are. These are not political positions. They are moral ones.

There is a question we must ask ourselves — not as Democrats or Republicans, not as taxpayers or administrators — but as human beings. And the question is this:

What do we owe the children among us who need a little more?

For decades, the answer has been written into federal law. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The Americans with Disabilities Act. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. These laws were won slowly, painfully — by parents who fought school boards, by advocates who sued the government, by disabled Americans who demanded to be seen as citizens first.

And right now, that promise is under threat. Federal enforcement of disability rights in education has grown uncertain, at best. The agencies families once counted on are being gutted. Funding is being cut. Priorities are shifting.

Colorado’s students with disabilities cannot wait to find out what comes next.

The Bill Before Us

Colorado Senate Bill 26-125, sponsored by Senators Kolker and Marchman and Representatives Bacon and Phillips, does something both simple and profound: it takes those core protections students with disabilities have long relied on under federal law and writes them directly into Colorado statute — making them permanent, enforceable, and independent of Washington.

It says that “no child in a Colorado public school may be excluded, diminished, or denied” an education because of a disability. Period.

Here is what it actually requires — and why each piece matters.

Every student must receive equal access. Schools cannot deny a disabled student the opportunity to participate in any program, service, or activity; and they cannot provide lesser services. They cannot use policies — even well-intentioned, facially neutral ones — that have the *effect* of subjecting disabled students to discrimination. Intent is not the standard. Impact is.

Accommodations are mandatory, not optional. Schools must make reasonable modifications to policies and procedures when those modifications are necessary to avoid discriminating against a disabled student. The burden falls on the school to prove an accommodation is impossible — not on the family to prove it isn’t.

Buildings must be accessible — all of them. No student may be excluded from any program or activity because a facility is inaccessible. Not the art room. Not the science lab. Not the bleachers. If a school places students with disabilities in a separate facility, that facility must be comparable in quality to the school’s general spaces.

Inclusion is the presumption, not the exception. Schools must educate students with disabilities alongside their peers to the maximum extent appropriate. Separation requires justification — demonstrated proof that education in the regular environment cannot be achieved even with supplementary support.

Schools must go looking for unserved students. Every year, every local education provider must actively seek out students with disabilities in its jurisdiction who are not receiving a public education and notify their families. This is not a passive duty. The children most likely to fall through this gap are the most vulnerable — from families with fewer resources, less English proficiency, and less familiarity with the system. The law requires the school to come to them.

If a school fails, there is now somewhere to go. SB26-125 creates a state-level complaint process administered by the Colorado Department of Education — with a 180-day resolution timeline. If the Department finds a violation, it can order audits, corrective action plans, compensatory services for the student, staff training, and reinstatement of wrongfully denied benefits. If a school willfully refuses to comply, the State Board of Education may withhold state funding. And no one may be retaliated against for filing a complaint or speaking up on a student’s behalf. This, this is the kicker of this bill.

This is a process designed for ordinary families — not for families with attorneys on retainer.

The Children This Bill Is For

Let me be specific, because it is easy to speak of “students with disabilities” in the abstract and lose sight of the child.

We are talking about the twelve-year-old with cerebral palsy whose middle school keeps the art room, the music room, and the gymnasium in a building she cannot enter. She has never taken an elective. She has never eaten lunch with her class.

We are talking about the fifteen-year-old with anxiety and ADHD who has a 504 plan sitting in a file cabinet, unimplemented, because her teachers were never trained on it. She is failing classes she could pass. She is beginning to believe the failure is hers.

We are talking about the seventeen-year-old with Down syndrome who is mocked every day in the hallway, who has told his teacher, who has told the principal, and whose parents have been told — with great sympathy and no action — that “kids can be cruel sometimes.” And that’s the extent of the school’s “help.”

These are not hypotheticals. They are the typical experience of families who do not have the money to hire an attorney, the time to sue a school district, or the political connections to make anyone listen.

SB26-125 is for them.

What History Asks of Us

The late Robert Kennedy, speaking in the last year of his life, said this:

“Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

The great causes he spoke of were always composed of smaller ones — a mother at a school board meeting, a family filing a complaint, a legislator deciding whether a bill deserves a floor vote.

The mightiest wall a child with a disability faces is not hostility. Most people wish these children well. The wall is indifference — the quiet, bureaucratic kind, the kind that manifests as an unanswered email, a form never filed, a complaint that fell through the cracks because there was no state process to catch it.

SB26-125 is a crack-filler. It is a promise written in statute that Colorado will not let these children fall through.

A Call to Action

If you live in Colorado, contact your legislators. Tell them why you support SB26-125 and ask them to vote YES on this critical bill. Then register to give personal testimony during the hearings.

These children are not a special interest — they are our neighbors, our students, our own — and they deserve the full protection of Colorado law, independent of whatever Washington does next.

If you are a parent of a child with a disability, share this post and tell your story. The legislators voting on this bill need to hear the human arguments, not just the legal ones.

If you work in a school, this bill is your ally. It gives parents a process that doesn’t require a lawsuit. It makes the implicit explicit — and the explicit enforceable.

The ripples start here.

Looking for more?

Pro-CO Education Project

The Pro-CO Education Project supports Colorado grassroots communities committed to protecting public education as it continues to innovate and grow. We value inclusion, belonging, and the diverse experiences of all students and families who choose to use public education.

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