Joint Venture: Activists Make Sure Marijuana Taxes Help Schools - Lily's Blackboard

Joint Venture: Activists Make Sure Marijuana Taxes Help Schools - Lily's Blackboard:

Joint Venture: Activists Make Sure Marijuana Taxes Help Schools

The first thing you notice about Barbara Clementi and Carole Partin is that gorgeous silver hair. (Pictures just don’t do it justice.) But listen to the retired Pueblo County, Colo. teachers talk, and it’s clear that their fervor for ensuring that all students have the opportunity for a great education is just as unforgettable as their sparkling manes. 

“Retirement” in the traditional sense of the word just isn’t for them. Yet they don’t want to do anything full time. So they approach post-retirement activism as a twosome, sharing the responsibilities and “subbing in” when one or the other needed a break.

Recently, they were named to Pueblo County’s marijuana licensing board, quite possibly making them the first teachers anywhere to serve on this kind of panel.

Now let’s get something straight at the outset: They always taught their middle-school students to steer clear of drugs and alcohol, and that is still their message. However, they are pragmatists. When Coloradans voted in 2012 to legalize marijuana for adults 21 and over and Pueblo County decided to allow growing, cultivating, and selling marijuana, the friends wanted to make sure public education would benefit from the revenue. That meant having a voice on the licensing board.

Colorado schools are desperate for resources. Since voters in 1992 passed the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, the most restrictive tax and spending limitation in the nation, funding for schools has plummeted. Within a decade of adopting the law, Colorado dropped from 35th in the country to 49th in spending on K-12 education as a Joint Venture: Activists Make Sure Marijuana Taxes Help Schools - Lily's Blackboard: