In the final days of Colorado's 2026 session, lawmakers attached two amendments to the state's School Finance Act (SB26-023) that dramatically limit which homeschool enrichment programs can draw public funding. The new rule confines a Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) to authorizing programs only inside its own member districts.
Ostensibly: to close a funding loophole and add guardrails to a fast-growing, taxpayer-funded enrichment system.
Probably: to rein in one specific operator — the Monument-based ERBOCES — which lawmakers say exploited the loophole to open dozens of enrichment programs and a public school far outside its two member districts.
For most Colorado homeschool families, this is a story about who runs the programs, not whether families can use them. The change targets the co-op authorization structure and the flow of public dollars — tens of millions of which had been passing through ERBOCES to enrichment programs statewide. CHEC, the state's main homeschool advocacy group, publicly accused lawmakers of "intentional obstruction," saying they sat on the changes until the session's chaotic final days to limit public input.
If you participate in an enrichment program, the practical question is whether your provider is authorized by a BOCES whose member districts cover you. That's worth confirming for next year.
ERBOCES — with just two member districts, El Paso County's District 49 and the Elizabeth district — had authorized more than 50 enrichment programs across Colorado and, last fall, opened what its leader called the state's "first public Christian school," then sued the state alleging religious discrimination. The amendments are the culmination of months of legislative frustration over that expansion.