The Cheyenne parents who sued the state in December over a controversial plan to close eight Laramie County elementary schools are buoyed by the recent district court ruling that the Wyoming Legislature has been unconstitutionally underfunding the state’s public schools and has to fix it.
In his 186-page ruling, Judge Peter Froelicher concluded that Wyoming “has failed to maintain a constitutionally compliant school facilities finance system by not adequately and evenly assessing school facilities for educational suitability.”
“So educational suitability must be considered,” said Katie Dijkstal, one of the Cheyenne plaintiffs. The Cheyenne school plan, she said, “is another example of the state making educational financial decisions about kids when they never think about the kids.”
The full implications of Froelicher’s ruling will likely take years to play out, but it has already influenced decisions. Days after the ruling, lawmakers restored a full $66.3 million external cost adjustment — a temporary amount designed to reflect rising costs of living — for teacher and other school staff salaries. With the judge ordering lawmakers to funnel more funds into teacher salaries, technology, counselors and school resource officers, school officials are hopeful they will have better resources soon.
It remains to be seen whether the ruling will have a bearing on the Cheyenne lawsuit. However, a parents group allied with the plaintiffs feels it has more ammunition aside from Froelicher’s decision. It recently obtained through a public-records request hours of video meetings involving Laramie County School District administrators, the State Construction Department and others discussing the school-closure plan. Those videos, the group alleges, illustrate how the administration pushed to close the schools in a manner that lacked transparency and did not take educational or community impact into consideration.
LCSD1 officials deny that characterization.
“District administration did not go into the [process] advocating the closure of school buildings,” an emailed statement from the district reads. “However, with aging facilities and declining enrollment across the District, the job of the administration is to recognize that sometimes in order to be good stewards of public funds, it is no longer feasible to keep all buildings operational.”
The outcome of this newer lawsuit could change the course of a plan to significantly alter the school landscape in the state’s largest school district.
Most cost-effective remedy
The plan at the center of the Cheyenne lawsuit is known as a “Most Cost-Effective Remedy” — or MCER — study.
The study came about through a routine, and statutorily mandated, statewide screening assessment for educational buildings deficient in either conditions or capacity. In that assessment, seven Laramie County buildings were flagged.
That triggered the study. Wyoming’s School Facilities Division hired a third-party contractor to complete the work, which entails weighing options spanning from constructing new buildings or additions to reconfiguring boundaries or eliminating buildings through consolidation.
Because so many buildings were flagged, the consultant, FEA, assessed all of the district’s 30 elementary schools. Per Wyoming law, the decision must “be in the best educational and financial interest of the state” while taking “into consideration the effects of the proposed activity on the local community.”
The study’s proposed remedy four promises a significant overhaul of the district’s existing building makeup by closing more than a quarter of its elementary schools; expanding, replacing or constructing seven other buildings; and relying more on larger 5-6 grade schools. The shift would roll out in phases between 2025 and 2035. The Wyoming’s School Facilities Commission adopted the study in November.
It has created a furor among district parents who decry the idea of losing small elementary schools they value for access and character in exchange for larger facilities. Critics question the methodology and assert that the process was conducted with insufficient public input.
In December, Dijkstal and Franz Fuchs sued Wyoming’s School Facilities Commission and State Construction Department. The suit alleges the commission’s selection of remedy four was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and unsupported by substantial evidence.” It didn’t take into account effects on the local community, the suit continued.
The elementary schools Fuchs’ and Dijkstal’s children would attend are slated for closure under the plan.
The study’s adoption allows for the release of funding for two projects the district desperately needs, LCSD1 Superintendent Stephen Newton told WyoFile: a replacement of Arp Elementary School and a new grades 5-6 school. This district is pleased to begin the next phase, he said in November.
Video clips
In response to a public records request, the Cheyenne Parents Alliance received more than 30 hours of video meetings spanning back to January 2024 and involving State Construction Department, state commission and school district representatives discussing the study process.
What it discovered was surprising, the alliance said: “LCSD1 administrators pushed for neighborhood elementary school closures from the start, making it their intended outcome.”
Every school could have been renovated, the group contends, which means closures weren’t necessary. Conversations show officials devising ways to forgo dealing with high-priority renovations by closing schools in order to address medium-priority projects like the 5-6 school, the group said, pointing to quotes like this one from Superintendent Newton: “This notion of ‘how can we be efficient to where some of what would be at the top of those lists are no longer even on those lists?’ Seems very appealing, I would think to everybody, I mean unless you’re a parent who just loves that school for sentimental reasons.”
That remark and others are featured in a 30-minute video the parents’ group produced.
School board members also “appear to have been misled about their ability to challenge the closures and pressured into approving a plan framed as inevitable,” the parent group said.
“Educational suitability and impacts on the community — both required by statute and the Constitution — were never seriously considered,” the group said. And it’s those constitutional impacts it believes are fortified by the recent ruling against the state.
The district denies that the intent was to close schools. “Heading into the MCER, the goal of the District was to ensure equity across the District and to be good stewards of public funds and facilities,” the district statement reads.
The district shifted its priorities to a school called Arp, it said, whose students had been relocated due to overcrowding and the poor condition of the building. “The District felt addressing those students’ needs and the aging and failing conditions of other South triad schools should take priority.”
Now, it’s in the court’s hands to determine whether the process was above board.
State’s obligation
Dijkstal believes the recent education ruling bodes well for her case since it emphasizes the state’s obligation to offer a “complete and uniform system of public instruction.”
“The reason that I think this is so timely is that this is a perfect example of when you don’t take in educational suitability and what’s best for students in the community into account when you make these decisions, the decisions end up inherently being unlawful,” she said.
LCSD1, in fact, is one of the eight school districts that were party to the educational funding lawsuit, which was filed in 2022.
The district stands by its process.
“Throughout the MCER process all options to address the 7 schools were put on the table and considered by the State, its consultant, and the District,” the district said. “At the end of the study, the District administration supported the remedy the state’s consultant determined was most cost effective. ”
The state commission at the center of the suit was admonished in December for joking about being sued during a meeting. Parents’ concerns are “no laughing matter,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder said.
This article was originally published by WyoFile and is republished here with permission. WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.
