The state of Wyoming paid a school district in Montana $438,000 this year to educate 35 children who live on the Wyoming side of the border in Yellowstone National Park.
Administrators in both states say the arrangement has worked well.
The federal government had paid for these students for decades—but it stopped last year due to budget cuts.
Students in the Mammoth Hot Springs area previously did not belong to any school district. Now, they attend school in Gardiner, Montana, but live within the expanded boundary of Wyoming’s Park County School District One.
Park County School District One Superintendent Kevin Mitchell says the relationship with his district and the one in Gardiner is limited. He signs off the funding—and provides some basic help meeting requirements for Wyoming.
"There isn’t really a lot of communication between myself and the school district," says Mitchell. "They have to meet the Hathaway Scholarship requirements for their students. So, we’ve offered them assistance in making sure their curriculum meets the Hathaway success requirements—and it does."
Thanks to the expansion, the Park County One school district more than doubled in size to 3,200 square miles.
