Over two days last week, teachers, parents, administrators, lobbyists and others took turns explaining to state lawmakers the problems they see with Wyoming’s evolving plan to fund public education.
Many who testified before the Select School Recalibration Committee in Cheyenne began by pointing out the positive — the bill would give teachers a salary bump.
But — and there were a lot of buts — the bill draft also raised classroom sizes, eliminated hundreds of full-time teacher roles, cut millions in education funding and failed to address issues like school nutrition and mental health counseling mandated by a 2025 court order, critics said.
“Teachers aren’t fooled,” Laramie County educator Jen McKee said Friday. “We see the hidden tradeoff buried in this plan … This proposal pretends to invest in education while quietly dismantling the structures that keep Wyoming schools functioning.”
The complaints did not go unnoticed. The lawmaking panel ultimately made several amendments to the legislation, modifying it to create smaller class sizes, adjusting the minimum number of teachers in small schools and inserting a placeholder for mental health, nurses, counselors and related-support funding.
Lawmakers will still wait until next summer to nail down the specifics for funding those areas, said Sen. Bo Biteman, R-Ranchester, but the placeholder shows intention.
“I think it’s wise that we put it in the bill draft to show as a placeholder, to show that we are serious about this,” Biteman said.
He wasn’t the only lawmaker to emphasize the gravity of the job. The committee is tasked with the exhaustive and tedious work of assessing the state’s constitutionally mandated school funding model and making necessary updates. Recalibration, as it is known, is required every five years, and this time it is unfolding following a 2025 court decision that Wyoming was failing to properly fund its public schools.
The committee, which has been chipping away at the process since early last summer, reconvened last week for a final time before the legislative session starts in February. Lawmakers, perhaps anticipating blowback, were quick to defend their work.
“We want everyone to know that we are working diligently on recalibration. It’s a tremendous undertaking,” Co-chair Scott Heiner, R-Green River, said, adding that the committee didn’t feel it could get through it all in the one-year timeframe. “We just don’t have a silver bullet to fix everything within one fell swoop, and it’s going to take time to hear all the testimony and do what’s best for our state and for the children of Wyoming.”
State-funded education
The recalibration process is required every five years to ensure the Legislature fulfills its constitutional duty to “provide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction.”
To do that, the state’s consultants, Picus, Odden and Associates, have been holding meetings with Wyoming educators, analyzing data and making recommendations over the course of many months.
Amid the minutiae and acronym-heavy language of education, several issues emerged early as topics of high interest for educators and lawmakers — including teacher pay, school resource officers, school nutrition programs and technology. Wyoming once offered stellar pay compared with neighboring states, educators, say, but that has slipped and with it districts’ ability to attract and retain high-quality teachers.
Many of those priorities overlap with areas identified in a February district court ruling that found the Wyoming Legislature violated the state’s constitution by underfunding public education and must amend that. The ruling, which the state is appealing, is the latest in a string of court cases that have further delineated the state’s education obligations.
In his 186-page order, Laramie County District Court Judge Peter Froelicher found the Legislature failed to properly fund the “basket of quality educational goods and services,” that the Wyoming Supreme Court in 1995 ordered lawmakers to set, update and fund every two years.
The judge also found the state failed to properly adjust funding for inflation; failed to provide funding for adequate salaries for teachers and staff; and failed to provide sufficient funding for mental health counselors, school safety resource officers, nutritional programs and computers for students. Lawmakers also have failed to properly assess school buildings for “educational suitability,” and have allowed inadequate facilities to exist for too long without repair or replacement, he ruled.
In October, recalibration committee members advanced several recommendations for inclusion into the final bill. That included setting average weighted teacher salaries at roughly $70,000, a bump from the model’s current weighted average of under $60,000. It also, however, increased classroom sizes, mandated that districts use the state health insurance plan and tabled topics like mental health counselors for future study.
Educators and others decried the latter decisions during the two days of testimony last week.
Several district superintendents stressed the importance of Wyoming’s so-called “block grant model,” which gives districts flexibility on spending.
“Some of these policies could inadvertently hurt all schools that rely on flexibility to meet essential needs,” Fremont County School District 2 Business Manager Amanda Ysen said.
Administrators along with insurance industry representatives also came out strongly against a mandate to join the state’s health insurance plan, warning it would have negative consequences. There are good reasons that districts have not opted to join the plan in the past, said Sheridan County School District 1 Business Manager Jeremy Smith. The mandate represents “a massive government takeover of private industry,” he said.
“Don’t waste anyone else’s time today testifying about how the state health insurance plan works, because it doesn’t work for us,” he said. “It won’t work for us, and that’s true for the other 47 districts who have not chosen it.”
Another major bone of contention was class sizes.
“In education, we know that the most important factor in a child’s learning is the teacher in the classroom, and that teacher’s ability to build relationships with students and spend time with students,” said Sheridan third-grade teacher and mother Megan Edmunds. “I’m deeply concerned about the proposed funding changes and the negative impact I feel they’ll have on student learning.”
Alex Petrino, a parent, counselor, Natrona County school board trustee and Wyoming Counseling Association member, warned lawmakers that mental health supports are essential in schools.
“Educators, counselors and school teams are not asking for extras. They’re asking for basic capacity,” Petrino said. “And yet this committee is talking about taking away the very basic support that the students need where they spend most of their day. This is not recalibration, that’s destabilization.”
Taken together, Lincoln County School District 1 Superintendent Teresa Chaulk said, the bill’s proposals are harmful.
“I respectfully urge the Legislature to align it with its stated priorities and to provide clear, transparent answers so that Wyoming students and teachers are not the unintended casualties of this recalibration process,” Chaulk said.
Bipartisan, unanimous
After hours of feedback last week, lawmakers began to propose changes aimed at quelling some of the public’s concerns.
Sen. Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston, proposed an amendment to decrease the proposed fourth- through eighth-grade class size ratios from 25 students to one teacher down to 22:1, and kindergarten through third-grade from 16:1 to 15:1. That passed.
“I think this will help the districts tremendously,” Schuler said.
Rep. Mike Yin, a Teton County Democrat, proposed a complicated amendment that aimed to buffer his home district from negative impacts a regional cost adjustment would incur owing to Teton County’s unique economics. Rep. Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, proposed an amendment to increase minimum teachers for small schools. Rep. Ocean Andrew, R-Laramie, proposed limits on maximum school-population-reduction amounts for schools. All passed.
Sheridan Republican Rep. Tom Kelly proposed striking the state health insurance plan mandate.
“I have been a critic of fixing something I don’t think is broken, and in this case, I think the choice of health insurance is not a broken system,” Kelly said.
Kelly’s motion was not seconded, meaning it didn’t have enough support for discussion or vote.
Laramie Democrat Sen. Chris Rothfuss piggybacked on the topic by asking that the committee undergo more rigorous investigation into the insurance provision before pulling the trigger. His suggestion passed.
The committee also tweaked provisions regarding investments and how often cost adjustments take place, and extended a state mental health grant by one year.
Lawmakers unanimously advanced the recalibration bill, which Co-Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, said wasn’t luck.
“We did a lot of work,” Salazar said. “There was a lot of give and take. There was compromise, and I so appreciate working on a bipartisan effort to have a unanimous vote.”
Not everyone was took such a rosy view. In a legislative update post on its website, the Wyoming Education Association, which filed the lawsuit that resulted in the 2025 court order, said the committee presented no substantial solutions to the concerns it heard.
“The big takeaway is that after days of testimony, with educators and advocates lined out the door to provide testimony, the committee offered no real fixes and instead dangled scraps from the table in an attempt to dissuade education professionals from standing up for themselves and their students,” the post read.
The bill still has a long way to go. The Wyoming Legislature convenes for its budget session on Feb. 9.
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.