There is a convenient narrative developing around the collapse of Education reEnvisioned BOCES: Teachers unions wanted it gone. The Colorado Department of Education targeted it. New legislation finally killed it.

That explanation is far too convenient.

ERBOCES’ ultimate demise wasn’t school choice. It wasn’t teachers unions. And it wasn’t simply a new law.

It was greed — the predictable result of a system allowed to push boundaries until citizens, journalists and, eventually, government officials started pushing back.

For years, ERBOCES operated largely outside the attention of most Coloradans. Yet, by last year, it served approximately 13,500 students. Its reach included online schools and dozens of homeschool enrichment programs. By the time District 49 dissolved ERBOCES, D-49 was its only remaining member district, while state law requires a BOCES to have at least two.

The Gazette itself reported that ERBOCES faced “operations and fund allocations.”

That deserves far more attention than any convenient political narrative.

Colorado lawmakers learned that some homeschool enrichment programs were using public education dollars for expenses including jiujitsu lessons, ski passes, personal computers and lacrosse club memberships.

Those examples weren’t manufactured by a teachers union. They came from state education auditors.

The current D-49 board president has characterized ERBOCES leadership as “pushers.” Perhaps those boundaries were pushed so aggressively that Colorado must now determine whether we’re looking at one of the largest public-education accountability failures in state history.

That determination belongs to investigators and auditors, not columnists. But asking the question is entirely appropriate.

Colorado should look west.

The similarities between ERBOCES/D49 and California’s infamous A3 Education scandal should make policymakers uncomfortable — not because the available evidence establishes that ERBOCES committed A3’s crimes. It doesn’t. The comparison is about what can happen when rapidly expanding alternative-education systems intersect with enrollment-driven public funding, private contractors and inadequate oversight.

A3 involved a sprawling network of online charter schools and ultimately a massive fraud prosecution involving hundreds of millions of dollars in public education funding. The lesson for Colorado isn’t that these are identical cases.

It’s that complexity can become camouflage.

When public money moves through school districts, alternative programs, contractors and layers of administration, taxpayers can have an extraordinarily difficult time determining where their education dollars ultimately went and who was responsible for making sure they were spent appropriately.

That’s why Colorado shouldn’t treat ERBOCES’ dissolution as the end of the story.

And it would be wrong to give the government all the credit for bringing us to this point.

This was a team effort.

Community members across Colorado asked uncomfortable questions. Parents spoke up. Citizens examined budgets, contracts, statutes, audits and public records. Journalists kept digging. Media outlets continued reporting when moving on would have been easier.

Those people shared something powerful: the audacity to ask where the money went.

For years, ERBOCES seemingly flew beneath the radar of institutions and officials, possessing far more authority than ordinary citizens to investigate it. Too many warning signs appear to have gone unnoticed, unanswered or unchallenged.

Then people started connecting the dots.

So no, legislation didn’t simply “ERBOCES.

The legislation changed the rules after policymakers confronted problems surrounding homeschool enrichment funding. And even after ERBOCES dissolved, the state gave its 44 homeschool programs an opportunity to seek new authorizers.

School choice survived.

ERBOCES didn’t.

That’s an important distinction.

Dissolution cannot become an eraser. Colorado should follow the contracts. Follow the enrollment numbers. Follow the contractors. Follow the financial relationships. Follow the audits.

Above all, follow the public’s money.

Because if years of “ERBOCES shouldn’t be the conclusion of this story.

It should be the beginning.

Ryan Brown is a School District 49 parent and local business owner.