By JONEL ALECCIA (AP Health Writer) The nation’s school meals will get a makeover under new nutrition standards that limit added sugars for the first time, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Wednesday. The final rule also trims sodium in kids’ meals, although not by the 30% first proposed in 2023. And it continues to allow flavored milks — such as chocolate milk — with less sugar, rather than adopting an option that would have offered only unflavored milk to the youngest kids. The aim is to improve nutrition and align with U.S. dietary guidelines in the program that provides breakfas ..read more

In 2023, 30% of all undergraduate engineering students were female at the University of Colorado Boulder, compared to 18% in 2003. Of the freshmen that came into engineering during the fall of 2023, 41% were female, up from 14% two decades ago. CU Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences announced these increases as its engaged in efforts during the past decades to improve gender diversity. Jasleen Batra, a student in electrical and computer engineering at CU Boulder, said she has noticed an increasing number of female engineering students. “My major is really, really tiny already ..read more

The 12 students and one teacher killed in the Columbine High School shooting will be remembered Friday in a vigil on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the tragedy. The gathering, set up by gun safety and other organizations, is the main public event marking the anniversary, which is more subdued than in previous milestone years. It’s scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday at First Baptist Church 1373 Grant St, in Denver, after being moved from the state Capitol. Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who began campaigning for gun safety after she was nearly killed in a mass shooting, will ..read more

Twenty-five years ago, Michelle DiManna sat in the math office at Columbine High School grading papers and talking to a colleague when she heard students screaming in terror. Two heavily armed shooters had entered the Jefferson County school late in the morning on April 20, 1999, and proceeded to kill 12 of their classmates and a teacher, injuring dozens more in a tragedy that shocked Colorado and the nation. The shooting, which ended with the two killers taking their own lives, reshaped school security across the United States and served as a precursor to the litany of mass killings that have ..read more

Colorado will distribute $24 million in one-time funding to public school districts and charter schools impacted by the unprecedented influx of immigrant students who arrived after the annual October headcount that determines districts’ state funding. Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed the bipartisan bill, HB24-1389, authorizing that money to be distributed this fiscal year from the State Education Fund. The Colorado Department of Education now will determine how much school districts receive using a multi-tiered funding model that’s based on how many new-to-the-country students they enrolled ..read more

The former communications director fired by Denver Public Schools in February alleges in internal emails that he faced harassment and retaliation from district officials after filing a formal discrimination complaint last year. In March emails obtained by The Denver Post, Will Jones told district officials that his “tenure at Denver Public Schools was unfortunately marred by instances of racial discrimination, harassment and subsequent retaliatory actions following my filing of a discrimination prevention and response (DPR) complaint.” Jones went on to say that, despite his efforts to seek sup ..read more

Tom Stritikus, a white guy from out of state who talks a mile a minute, in the summer of 2018 took the helm of a rural southern Colorado college with a significant Native American student body and an institutional history of Indigenous oppression and cultural genocide. It was a nuanced task, with the potential for distrust and risk of amplifying a more palatable, revisionist history of Fort Lewis College’s past as an Indian boarding school. But Indigenous tribal leaders, students and staff say Stritikus chose a different path. Under Stritikus’s leadership, Durango’s Fort Lewis College confront ..read more

Materials from Otis Taylor’s decades-long career as an internationally recognized Boulder-based blues banjo artist are now part of an archived collection at the University of Colorado Boulder. Taylor, who’s lived in Boulder since 1967, has released 15 albums and been at the forefront of Black banjo music. Taylor won many awards throughout his career for his music, which was often about race, injustice and the hardships Black people face. Taylor was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in 2019. “He’s a very wonderful addition on many levels. First of all, Otis is a great artist that is ..read more

(Embedded video provided by Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC Attorneys at Law) A former Littleton Public Schools paraprofessional is facing a felony charge after police say video footage revealed she beat a non-verbal child with severe autism last month on a school bus that was transporting special-needs students. Parents of children who rode that bus to and from the Joshua School in Englewood say they believe the abuse had been happening for months and that there are additional victims. “I don’t want this to be something that’s hushed up,” Jessica Vestal, the boy’s mother, said of the video footage of ..read more

Denver Public Schools paid $25,000 to settle claims that former school board Vice President Auon’tai Anderson violated a parent’s First Amendment right to free speech by blocking her from his Facebook page during his time on the Board of Education. The settlement announced Monday follows last month’s unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that found public officials can sometimes be sued for blocking critics on social media, including when using personal accounts. The lawsuit, filed against DPS and Anderson by Denver parent Eve Chen last year in the U.S. District Court of Colorado, was bro ..read more