Education has been a big topic during this legislative session, especially affecting K-12 schools. Over 20 bills were filed in the House and Senate. They span from changing the number of school days to funding and curriculums.

Since we’re past the halfway point of the session, Wyoming Public Radio’s Kamila Kudelska checked in with three stakeholders on a couple of key bills that have been moving forward.

Dylan Ford is a 7th grade English teacher who is also the president of the Cheyenne Teachers Education Association, a local association for certified staff.

Kari Cline is an advocate for the Wyoming Public Charter Schools Association. The group works on policies and laws that align with their mission to help support charter schools.

Kim Amen is a 32-year veteran educator and the current president of the Wyoming Education Association, which advocates for public schools.

This year’s bills follow a couple of overarching themes, starting with school choice.

Editor’s Note: This interview was lightly edited for clarity and brevity. 

Kamila Kudelska: What does school choice mean to you?

Dylan Ford:  I'm all for school choice. It should be the right of any parent to make choices for their kid's classroom, but it shouldn't come at the expense of public school students.

Kari Cline: I like to phrase it more of school options, or educational freedom. I believe that families and kids, they don't all come in one size fits all and they all have different learning styles. I think the more options we have in our system to allow parents and kids the ability to pick and choose and find the fit for them, I think the better everything is. I would just remind everybody that charter schools are public schools. So we are part of the public school system and a lot of what we see happening now does affect us as well.

Kim Amen: I would echo some of the same sentiments that both Dylan and Kari said. Of course, everyone should have a choice. The problem is, from our perspective, that our public school educators have been so tied down with legislation and bureaucracy that they no longer have the freedom to teach students the way they need to be taught.

For instance, we know – Kari is right – we know that all students learn differently. We know every year, your students in your classroom change, so every year you have to have some flexibility. The problem with placing such stringent rules and demands on our public schools is that that really limits choice for everybody.

KK: So in relation to school choice, some of the bills that I've observed are Wyoming trying to pass bills that would open up school options for students by helping them pay for private schools, reducing homeschoolers' requirements to check in with local school districts and allowing more charter schools.

Let's start with Kari and Kim first. How do you think this would impact education in the state?

KA: They're all different. House Bill 199, the savings account-Freedom Scholarship, really is probably the most devastating of the bills in our opinion, because that has absolutely no accountability whatsoever to anyone who takes the money.

So if you are a parent and you have two children and you get $14,000 to send your children to what school you want, that's great. Except for there's no check on that school, whether or not they're meeting curriculum standards that are set by the state Department of Education, and parents and communities have input in all of those.

So again, you have the same pot of money that is being given to public schools and charter schools. But you do not have the same accountability in that specific bill. That particular bill would give no accountability and none of the same standards to the people receiving that [funding]. So what it does is it cuts funding for our public school systems.

We know that private schools cost more than $7,000 per student per year. So it would largely benefit families who already have their students in a private school, but students who live in poverty and their families who live in poverty could never afford it. So that leaves lower income, more vulnerable students and also more special ed students in the public schools with less resources.

KK: Okay, Kari, how would you respond to that?

KC: Officially, charter schools have no position on House Bill 199. As broadly supporters of all school choice or options, I will say just on a side note, we've been following the bill [and] watching the conversations. I do think there's been some amendments made to add back in some accountability measures.

The charter schools legislation, we've got a couple of bills going. One that would remove the arbitrary cap or moratorium on the ability for the Wyoming state authorizing board for charter schools to look at applications. Currently, they can't look at any other applications until 2029, which means that a new charter school would not open under their authority until the school year 2030.

We just feel that, number one, is arbitrary. We have the state board that was authorized, they're highly educated, they have great expertise on the board, and we feel they should really be allowed the opportunity to vet any applicants. If we look at some of the states around us, what we see is that there's not going to be this influx of charter schools. There's no fly-by-night schools that are suddenly going to open overnight. It's about an 18 month process once you're approved or once you start the application process. So I think that it's really not going to be this huge sudden influx of charter schools in Wyoming like a lot of people think.

KK: Dylan, how do you see these impacting teachers?

DF: I'm worried about what the combination of some of these bills will do. For instance, HB 199, this is the voucher program. It funds the vouchers by diverting federal mineral royalties, which would have normally gone to public schools, to fund the vouchers.

Not sure where it's going to end up as far as the certification process, but combining that with the fact when a student leaves a public school, it loses the funding as a district. Combining that with the Homeschool Freedom Act, HB 46, which removes the requirement for homeschool parents to get their curriculum approved by school districts, so removing that accountability – I’m worried that the combination of those two bills is essentially going to create a welfare program that's funded at the expense of our kids who are in public schools.

In addition to that, the charter school authorizations are going to make it difficult for all public schools, including charter schools, to know what funds they're going to have available the following year. While I understand that there might not be an influx of charter schools all at once, I think it would be responsible for the Legislature to have those safeguards in place to say this is how many open up this year. Then that way public schools will know what funds they have to work with and what funds they can rely on for student programs.

KK: Does anyone want to respond to anything?

KA: I did want to respond just for a minute on the opening of charter schools.

The problem with removing the cap, in our opinion, is that it cost $14 million when we just opened the new charter schools. And again, that money comes out of the public school funds. It's not extra money. We have a limited amount of funding in this state, which is actually under attack as we look at it.

Now, there are several bills that are trying to lower the budget for education and cut funding. But at the same time, we're also expanding options. You can't have more schools with less money and have everybody have an equal playing field.

KK: Another theme I've seen is parental rights. One bill [HB 200], and this is in a nutshell, but it would require teachers and school personnel to notify parents about curriculums before the year starts, and of any instruction, training or presentations on gender identity, sexual orientation, and diversity, equity and inclusion.

Dylan, let's start with you. How would this affect teachers around Wyoming?

DF: The original language behind this bill was probably the scariest in my eyes from the day-to-day perspective of teaching. Now, it's since been amended to remove all of those posting requirements, all of the lawsuit language, as well as the addition at the end where it could be grounds for firing.

But it just seems like these parental rights bills aren't really focused on parental rights. It really just seems to be imposing politics on our classroom. They also seem to be written in a way that assumes educators are bad actors in this, and it really seems to seek to replace just regular conversations that teachers should be having and educators in general should be having with parents, and replacing that with laws, litigiousness and other things that really should have no place in school.

KC: I don't think as the charter school movement or as our association, we're taking any positions on that particular bill at this time. We really strive as our association to talk to our school leaders, find out what they need inherently. Charter schools are not top down, they’re bottom up. So parents, teachers have a large voice in what's happening in the school.

KA: It's parental rights in the public schools, but the argument of the accountability in a voucher program for a private school, when asked that question, the proposers of that said, ‘Well, it's up to the parents. That's the parent's job.’

I would argue it's the same thing in the public school. Parents have a responsibility to talk to their teachers and meet with their teachers and make sure that they're talking to the administrators. It does appear that it's specifically targeting public school educators. If that's really what you're after, it should target everybody who's receiving that money.