VERA Colorado — SB 26-189 Compliance + Education Data
On January 1, 2027, SB 26-189 makes every Colorado school district a regulated deployer of any AI tool that materially influences consequential education decisions. VERA-CO delivers real Colorado Department of Education data across all 178 school districts today — CMAS proficiency, ACCESS for ELLs, District Performance Framework ratings, graduation, and enrollment. The COMPLY–Colorado compliance gate, previewed below, is the SB 26-189 implementation layer arriving before January 2027.
Launch VERA-CO Request DemoType 4 Gap Detection
Type 4 gap analysis examines the delta between English learners' oral and written performance to surface district-level patterns that warrant screening review under existing READ Act and MTSS processes. Full district-level Speaking vs. Writing scale-score analysis requires a CDE aggregate data request; VERA-CO currently uses two public proxies: CMAS ELA proficiency by language status, and ACCESS proficiency-level distribution with redesignation eligibility rates. This complements — it does not replace — READ Act screening.
District-level ELA proficiency compared for EL versus non-EL students, from CDE's public CMAS disaggregated files. Surfaces district-level performance gaps by language proficiency.
WIDA Levels 1–6 percentages and redesignation eligibility rates at the district level. Published in CDE's ACCESS for ELLs District and School Summary files.
District-level pattern signal, not a clinical diagnosis. Not a substitute for READ Act screening or MTSS. Raw Speaking & Writing scale scores at the district level require a CDE aggregate data request.
Colorado Data Coverage
VERA-CO queries a normalized warehouse of Colorado Department of Education public files — nearly 700 files, over 3 million rows — covering every district and 1,833 schools across 6–9 years of history depending on the file series.
ELA, Mathematics, Science, Spanish LA. District, school, and state-level performance-level distributions plus disaggregated results by ethnicity, EL status, IEP, FRL, gender.
WIDA proficiency levels 1–6 plus redesignation eligibility rates at the district and school level, 2017–2026.
District and School Performance Framework ratings 2019–2025 plus historical archive back to 2010, points earned, performance-watch status.
Graduation and dropout rates, IPST enrollment (SPED, EL, homeless, gifted, immigrant, migrant), chronic absenteeism, discipline, growth percentiles, and CDE finance.
SB 26-189 Compliance Gate
Colorado's AI statute is generous to schools: notice, correction, and human-review duties can be satisfied through existing FERPA processes. But that safe harbor attaches system by system — only where a district has mapped each AI tool to the FERPA procedure that covers it. And the three-year versioned recordkeeping requirement has no FERPA analog at all.
Which AI tools in your district materially influence consequential education decisions — and does each one map to a documented FERPA notice, access, correction, and human-review process, with three years of version-controlled records?
A statute-to-process compliance gate that builds the required AI-tool inventory before the Attorney General's implementing rules define what audit-ready looks like. A policy manual describes governance; VERA measures it.
VERA-CO supports district compliance documentation and recordkeeping backed by the same public CDE data that answers the district's own accountability questions — CMAS, ACCESS, DPF, graduation, enrollment. Districts should confirm SB 26-189 obligations with legal counsel.
Initial Public-Data Coverage
VERA-CO's analysis layer is built entirely on publicly available CDE data across all 178 Colorado school districts (184 CDE-reporting entities including the Charter School Institute, BOCES, and administrative units) and 1,833 schools. Coverage at launch highlights the districts with the largest English Learner populations. No district enrollment, data-sharing agreement, or student-level data required. Values shown are 2024–25 unless noted.
| District (CDE Name) | Code | EL Students | 2025 DPF % Earned |
|---|---|---|---|
| Denver County 1 | 0880 | Very High | See VERA-CO |
| Adams-Arapahoe 28J (Aurora) | 0180 | Very High | See VERA-CO |
| Greeley 6 | 1210 | Very High | See VERA-CO |
| Adams 12 Five Star Schools | 0020 | High | See VERA-CO |
| Jefferson County R-1 | 1420 | Moderate | See VERA-CO |
| Cherry Creek 5 | 0130 | High | See VERA-CO |
| Douglas County Re 1 | 0900 | Low | See VERA-CO |
| Poudre R-1 | 2180 | Moderate | See VERA-CO |
Full district-level and school-level data for all 178 districts and 1,833 schools is queryable through the launched VERA-CO app.
Get Started
Explore district-level CMAS proficiency, ACCESS for ELLs results, DPF ratings, graduation, and enrollment across all 178 Colorado school districts — and see the SB 26-189 compliance gate in context.
Launch VERA-CO