Today, Governor Polis provided an update on the state’s wildfires and how they are affecting air quality. As of Tuesday morning:
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Mullen Fire: In South-Central Wyoming. 77,950 acres and 2% contained - most active of all the local wildfires and periodically having a major contribution to smoke in Northern/Central Colorado.
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Cameron Peak Fire: 124,026 acres and 21% contained. Third largest in state history.
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Middle Fork Fire: 7,897 acres and 0% contained.
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Williams Fork Fire: Grew to 12,850 acres and 14% contained.
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Grizzly Creek Fire: Unchanged at 32,431 acres and 91 percent contained.
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Up until Saturday, Colorado was seeing periodic impacts from the five wildfires listed above, while seeing a lesser, but not negligible, contribution from out-of-state wildfires (particularly California and Wyoming). On Saturday night, a cold front moved through Colorado which reduced the smoke impact from the California fires.
Local fires remain active, especially the Mullen Wildfire in South-Central Wyoming, meaning smoke remained an issue into Sunday morning despite cooler temperatures and higher humidity across the region.
Although air quality improved Sunday night into morning across much of the state, conditions could go downhill again this week. Drier weather conditions will return over the next few days, increasing the potential for wildfire activity and prolonged periods of smoke this week.
As of Sunday, CDPHE had issued 107 Air Quality Health Advisories for Wildfire Smoke across Colorado. That is the second highest number of advisories since they started being tracked in 2011 (the highest number issued was 133 in 2018).
There are a number of steps the Governor encourages Coloradans to take to protect their health and well-being during smoke advisories:
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Assess smoke risk: When wildfire smoke is particularly thick, it poses a threat to everyone, regardless of medical history or age. The rule of thumb is that if wildfire smoke reduces visibility in your neighborhood below five miles, it’s dangerous to all.
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Stay indoors: In these situations, residents should stay indoors as much as possible and limit their outdoor exposure if they must leave their homes.
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Limit physical exertion: Residents should also limit exercise, even indoors.
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Adjust A/C: If your home has a window air conditioning unit, use the indoor air circulation setting to avoid bringing unhealthy air into your home. The same measures should be taken with a vehicle’s air conditioner.
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Governor Polis provided an update today on the state’s response to COVID-19 and how the pandemic is affecting Colorado students. He was joined by Commissioner of Education, Dr. Katy Anthes, Superintendent of Aurora Public Schools, Rico Munn, and Dr. Chris Rogers, Director of Child and Adolescent Services at the Medical Center of Aurora and President of the Colorado Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Society.
Ensuring that every school-aged Coloradan is enrolled, attending, and engaged in school is critically important for our kids, parents, and our state’s economy.
When the state had to transition to remote learning last year, our schools, school districts, and educators took on the herculean task of standing up a remote learning program with very few resources or direction. School districts were rightly focused on helping to meet students’ basic needs and ensuring that kids had stable meals that would get them through the end of the year. But we know that just a few months of lost learning in the spring has had significantly negative consequences for students. Those few months, combined with an even more extreme “summer slide,” has put our highest needs students even further behind.
We also know that learning loss, particularly for our highest needs populations like English language learners, students with disabilities, low-income students, and students experiencing homelessness or in foster care, can have implications for years to come.
One McKinsey study showed that the average K–12 student in the United States could lose $61,000 to $82,000 in lifetime earnings, or the equivalent of a year of full-time work, solely as a result of COVID-19–related learning losses.
McKinsey also estimated the average loss for students is seven months, but for low-income students it is more than a year. COVID has the potential to exacerbate existing achievement gaps by up to 15 to 20%. Other research has shown that learning loss is greater in the earlier grades - and particularly prominent for pre-kindergarten through third grade.
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While we do not yet have a full picture, we know that many parents have decided not to enroll their children for any number of reasons. Based on state data, we do know that enrollment is down in lower grades, and attendance and engagement are too low in the upper grades.
When students are not enrolled or attending school, they can't reap the social benefits of connecting with their peers. Even if they are interacting with other students remotely, they may lack much-needed social support.
Without a connection to school, students may not be able to access school support personnel, like mental health professionals, who can help them address the trauma they have faced as a result of the pandemic and in their personal lives.
Parents, educators, religious leaders, community members, and the business community all have a role to play in addressing this challenge. The Governor asks that we all do our part to increase school engagement and learning during this crisis by taking the following critical steps:
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Parents: Make a plan to make sure your child is enrolled, attending, and engaged in school. Find an option that works for your family, and ask for help when needed.
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Educators: Work hard to conduct outreach to our highest needs families. This could mean reassigning staff to make calls to parents, or using community leaders to help track down students who are difficult to find.
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Community members: We all need to be partners in this effort. I am proud that many community centers across the state have opened up space for students to do remote learning while their parents are working.
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Business Leaders: Donate time and resources. Look through storage closets and donate those extra laptops to "PCs to People." Consider what kind of additional support can be provided to employees who are parents.
Addressing this crisis takes ingenuity and creativity. All are invited to share actions taken as an educator, parent, neighbor, or community member on social media to make sure that students in our communities are enrolled in school and engaged in learning. Tag Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter posts with #everykideveryday.
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Of course, the state must play a critical role in addressing learning loss as well. While we know that remote learning is likely a reality where COVID-19 cases are high, we also want to make sure that every school and school district has the tools it needs to get back to in-person learning where safely possible.
That’s why the Governor today announced revisions to our COVID-19 guidance for schools. The revisions provide more information to school districts and empowers them to adopt best practices for COVID mitigation, such as seating charts, mask-wearing, and quarantining "close contacts."
In addition, the Governor announced that we have placed 40 new AmeriCorps members in some of our highest needs schools from the San Luis Valley to the Front Range focused on student outreach and engagement. These AmeriCorps members will help to contact high-needs families to get their children enrolled, attending, and engaged in school as soon as possible.
Finally, it was also announced that $2 million from the Colorado Department of Local Affairs through the Next Step program will support education-housing partnerships to help provide stable housing for children and families experiencing homelessness. These resources will support Adams 14, Sheridan, Brighton 27J, JeffCo, and Boulder school districts and their partners by helping to house over 200 homeless families.
These steps will complement other efforts the state has taken, including:
- Providing 34,000 hotspots to families and $2 million to address broadband connectivity issues, made possible by efforts of the Attorney General and Colorado Department of Education;
- Significant expansion of Colorado Empowered Learning, our state’s digital learning platform; and
- Providing more flexibility for parents engaging through “learning pods,” while still protecting child safety.
Parents and their children can watch "Colorado Classroom," high-quality K-3 literacy and STEM content taught by master teachers every Monday through Friday 8-10 am on Rocky Mountain PBS or at RMPBS.org. And parents worried about their children’s mental or behavioral health should contact Colorado Crisis Services at 1-844-493-TALK (8255) or text “TALK” to 38255.
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Today, the Governor reminded Coloradans that the deadline to fill out the 2020 Census form is October 5, 2020.
The Census is so much more than a population count. It is a critical process meant to ensure that the people of our state and their communities get access to the resources that they need to thrive, both now and in the future.
An accurate count will mean billions of dollars over the next 10 years in federal funds for our communities to help with a variety of necessary projects, from building roads to providing healthcare.
So please, take a few minutes to fill out the census form and mail it back in so we can ensure that Colorado is getting the best return on our investment from the federal government.
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