Education

The U.S. Department of Education is proposing a new set of priorities that would incentivize changes to the way history and civics is taught. The federal government is encouraging K-12 schools to include diverse perspectives in history and civics and to take notice of systemic racism in America's history.

Wyoming Public Radio's Catherine Wheeler spoke with State Superintendent Jillian Balow about the proposal, which Balow sharply criticized.

The plan to build an immersion program at St. Stephens Indian School in Fremont County had been years in the making. Immersion language programs use various techniques to encourage bilingual learning. This program was going to have three teachers in a classroom of around a dozen kindergartners. The teachers would teach kindergarteners everything they normally do, only half in English and half in Arapaho.

One of the top priorities of many legislators was to reduce spending for K-12 education. Governor Mark Gordon has mentioned it in his last couple of State of the State messages and the legislature was just a conference committee away from passing a bill to do that. But a major disagreement between the House and Senate over whether there should just be reductions or reductions that included some revenue led to the bill's demise.

It led Casper Senator Charles Scott to claim that the House was a bunch of tax and spend liberals. That overreaction probably won't help future discussions go any smoother, but it's also likely the issue isn't off the table. The good news for school districts is that they won't see cuts this year. Brian Farmer is the Director of the Wyoming School Boards Association. Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck asked him to break down what happened.

Ray Jones is a junior at Natrona County High School. Jones is also this year's Poetry Out Loud State Champion.

Poetry Out Loud is a national arts education program that supports poetry by offering free educational materials and hosting a recitation competition for high schools across the country. It's a partnership between the National Endowment for the Arts, the Poetry Foundation, and state arts agencies. In this case, the Wyoming Arts Council.

Wyoming Public Radio's Naina Rao sits down with Jones to talk about winning the competition, what's next for national championships, and what got Jones into poetry.

Victoria Bush has been teaching art at the Cody Elementary Schools for three years.

"I've got one kiddo that, you know, he does struggle academically, but he's got kind of like a spunk," she said.

Over the last couple of weeks, the Wyoming House and Senate have been making changes to the funding model that funds schools in the state. Most of the focus has been on cuts, with the Senate trimming over $100 million and the House cutting an additional $60 million.

The funding model provides money that schools say they need to operate and is court mandated. To change the model there needs to be evidence that less money for schools is needed. Grady Hutcherson, President of the Wyoming Education Association, discussed whether lawmakers are following the law.

Felix Mercado was born in Worland in 1940. His parents, originally from Mexico, had traveled around the United States, eventually settling in Worland as sugar beet farmers where he and his older brothers grew up.

Wyoming's legislature meets next week and among the topics will be education spending and budget cuts. Gov. Mark Gordon joined Bob Beck to talk about a number of things including some of the budget challenges the state is facing.

Throughout this past summer, the Park County School District #1 administration in Powell was focusing on how to reopen schools safely for their students amid the pandemic. Then Ginger Sleep, the district's special services director, said they got another surprise.

Buffalo High School sophomore Caydence Engling said growing up, she thought she wanted to be a doctor because she likes to help people.

A 17th-century book known as the Baumfylde Manuscript is giving insight into the lives and priorities of people of the past. Wyoming Public Radio's Ivy Engel spoke to UW professor Peter Parolin who analyzed the manuscript.