Gerald Lovato had a lot to do before his next fight. A physical. An eye exam. Blood work.

Swinging by his Albuquerque home that afternoon, Gerald found his roommate making tacos. Mikey, also a professional fighter, was studying massage. “Before your fight?” Mikey asked, gesturing to his massage chair in the corner of the kitchen. Gerald smiled. Later. 

Both were men of few words. For Gerald, the tendency toward quiet started with childhood abuse. Then, out celebrating his 21st birthday, he got mixed up in a brawl. A stab wound that debilitated his right hand also left him anxious about crowds.

A physical therapist suggested he try mixed martial arts. Gerald got good fast and turned pro. Mikey, his teammate, was like a brother.  

Mikey was in the kitchen when Gerald left to finish his pre-fight tasks and get his daughter from school. She remarked how good it smelled when she got home. 

“Mikey made tacos. We’ll have that for dinner.”

But Mikey wasn’t around. 

Gerald woke that night to Mikey’s girlfriend banging on the front door. She couldn’t get him on the phone. 

Gerald knocked on the door to his friend’s room. No response. He tried the handle. Locked. He forced it open. 

Mikey’s death ignited Gerald’s drive to understand the pervasive silence surrounding suicide. Gerald was no stranger to suicidal thoughts. The two men could have helped one another. 

But there was still the match. As Gerald prepared to enter the ring, an unusual thing happened. 

“This guy walks in and he’s like, ‘Hey, anybody want a chair massage?’ It just felt like Mikey fulfilling his word.” 

He lost a close fight. But the chance encounter reminding him of Mikey stayed in his head.

He fought for several more years, till his body couldn’t keep pace with the sport’s demands. Gerald rekindled a love for art he’d abandoned as an insecure child.

A move to San Diego to get his daughter closer to her mom landed Gerald in painting school. 

Painting alone in his studio, the flow he’d felt in the ring coursed through him again. He found personal peace and catharsis, but Mikey’s death, and those of other friends, pushed Gerald to address the silence surrounding suicide through art. 

Back in New Mexico he hosted art events to bring his community together. That led to an introduction to a University of Wyoming American Studies professor who encouraged him to study in Laramie.

This spring, he’ll graduate with a master’s degree focused on art’s role in suicide prevention. Experience Gerald’s research in action at “Wyoming Unite” from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the University of Wyoming Art Museum in Laramie. 

Inviting his community to connect around suicide terrifies him more than a fight. It’s important work, but he’s still a quiet guy who gets nervous in crowds. 

He knows what to do in moments like this. You tape up your fists, believe in yourself and get in the ring.

If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.

The post He fought professionally. Now, he battles stigma of suicide through art. appeared first on WyoFile .

A second major donor to the University of Wyoming told WyoFile he will reconsider giving to the school out of consternation over the demotion of the engineering college’s dean.

On April 2, the day the university announced Dean Cameron Wright’s demotion, engineer and inventor Alan “Gene” Humphrey wrote the trustees and UW President Ed Seidel, asking them to reverse course. Describing himself as a donor of more than $2 million through direct contributions, scholarships and support to UW students through his 9H Research Foundation, Humphrey is an alumni and owner of a sprawling ranch in Albany and Goshen counties that shares its name with the foundation. 

“It is with this deep investment that I must express my strong disagreement with the decision to relieve Dr. Cameron Wright — or as he is known to everyone, Cam — of his role as Dean,” Humphrey wrote in his letter. In the letter, he did not announce any pause on his philanthropy.

In response to a question from WyoFile this week, however, Humphrey said his giving was now in question.

“Cam’s leadership made us comfortable in our philanthropy, and future funding is being reevaluated in light of this questionable demotion decision,” he wrote. His statement came Wednesday, a day after the board of trustees announced it would establish a committee to respond to a week of turmoil in the campus community that followed Wright’s demotion. 

In that announcement, the board also doubled down on its argument that Wright was fired because of performance issues in advancing a long-held university goal to push the engineering college into the top tier of such schools nationally. Critics of the decision have argued Wright was in fact demoted for his opposition to a plan by Seidel to push funding toward the School of Computing, a program that has been one of the president’s flagship initiatives and is directed by his romantic partner, Gabrielle Allen.

“We reiterate that the decision to remove the dean was based solely on his performance — not on the dean’s objections to a possible, relatively minor proposed funding shift,” the trustees said in a Tuesday statement. 

Wright felt so strongly that the funding shift would violate the intent of the Wyoming Legislature that he brought a personal attorney to a meeting to discuss it. His supporters have argued that until this month, when Wright was sharply questioned at a board of trustees meeting, that trustees had not taken issue with his progress toward the “Tier 1” goal.

Minutes from prior trustee meetings show Wright updated the board as recently as this past November on progress toward that goal, and he does not appear to have been met with questions or criticisms then. 

At a meeting the year before, a trustee commended Wright’s progress and his stewardship of state funding. “Trustee John McKinley thanked Wright for the report and commended the appropriate use of state funding to move the Tier I Engineering Initiative in the direction initially envisioned,” the minutes from the November 2023 meeting read. 

The 9H Research Foundation’s reevaluation follows a pause in funding announced last week by the John P. Ellbogen Foundation, another major donor to the engineering college and other components of the university. That foundation said it would not consider any applications for new grants from the school until it sees signs that restore its confidence in leadership. 

“The manner and lack of transparency in which business was conducted diminishes the confidence and trust that are foundational to our commitments as a donor,” a letter signed by the Ellbogen Foundation’s board read. 

On Thursday, the Ellbogen Foundation’s president told WyoFile the trustees’ response had not altered the organization’s position. “We’re not changing any plans at this time,” Mary Ellbogen Garland said. 

“We just want to know that there’s transparency and we want to feel confidence and trust in our grant making,” she told WyoFile in a previous interview. 

(The John P. Ellbogen Foundation is a funder of WyoFile. Funders are not involved in WyoFile’s editorial decisions.) 

Wright’s demotion sparked a furor on campus that could take some time to abate. It drew an outraged response from other college deans, who expressed “deep concern for the trajectory of the university.” And, for the first time in recent memory, the dissatisfaction sparked a vote of no confidence in Seidel’s leadership by an overwhelming majority of the faculty senate. 

The board has not backed down. In their statement Thursday, the trustees cemented their support of Seidel, saying he had their “unanimous support.” 

University of Wyoming spokesperson Chad Baldwin told WyoFile the administration could not state whether other donors or foundations had pulled back over the last week. “At this time, we’re not able to provide details on the considerations of specific donors,” he said. 

“We know that changes in leadership can sometimes lead to reflection and dialogue among UW’s philanthropic partners,” Baldwin said. “While we don’t speak on behalf of individual donors or foundations, the university remains committed to maintaining open lines of communication and working constructively through any questions or concerns that may arise.”

The post Second major donor ‘reevaluates’ support for University of Wyoming appeared first on WyoFile .

History jobs aren’t easy to come by. So when a position for a digital archivist opened at the University of Wyoming in 2020, Rachael Laing uprooted their life near Chicago for small-town Laramie. 

Laing, who has a master’s degree in history, has spent the last five years undertaking a project to digitize hundreds of thousands of historic Wyoming newspaper microfilm pages and make them free to the public. 

The project is part of National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress to create a searchable online database of newspapers. Laing and other archivists contributed files to Chronicling America, which is now home to millions of pages of American newspapers published between 1789-1963. Laing’s position was seeded by a $209,000 grant from the Humanities Endowment. 

The UW Libraries grant has been renewed in the five years since, paying for Laing to facilitate the total addition of nearly 300,000 pages of Wyoming newspapers to the database. 

Last week, however, the grant was terminated as part of significant cuts made to the National Endowment for the Humanities by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. 

And Laing was abruptly out of a job. 

Though Laing’s own life and career have been disrupted by the sudden firing, the archivist is more concerned about the fate of the project. 

“I liked that the work seemed important,” said Laing, who uses they/them pronouns. “It felt like we were creating something that was going to be very helpful to a lot of people.”

The project is among the latest Wyoming casualties of DOGE, which Trump champions as a voter-backed effort to reduce federal bureaucracy and expenditures. DOGE cuts have resulted in an array of Wyoming impacts — from U.S. Forest Service employees losing their jobs in Jackson to federal office closures in Cheyenne and sudden funding cuts for organizations like Wyoming Humanities. 

For Laing, it all happened incredibly fast, and they are still reeling. They are also saddened to think about the scope of programming nationwide that was axed without preamble. 

“I’m just really disappointed that suddenly this federal agency that was dispersing grants to really amazing projects was just … washed away,” Laing said. 

Frozen, aborted

Last week’s cuts targeted two federal agencies, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Studies. Actions included placing staff on administrative leave and cancelling grants, according to reports. 

The National Endowment for the Humanities was founded in 1965, under the same legislation that enacted the more well-known National Endowment for the Arts. The Humanities Endowment has awarded more than $6 billion in grants to museums, historical sites, universities, libraries and other organizations, according to its website.

A significant piece of the Humanities Endowment’s overall funding, 40%, goes to state humanities councils like Wyoming’s. Those councils act as umbrellas, partnering with other organizations to support cultural events or awarding grants to projects. Humanities councils in all 50 states received notice last week that their grants were being terminated, according to reports. 

“Your grant no longer effectuates the agency’s needs and priorities and conditions of the Grant Agreement and is subject to termination due to several reasonable causes,” read the letter that Wyoming Humanities received, adding “the NEH is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.” 

NEH funding makes up 80% of Wyoming Humanities’ budget, covering staff expenses, travel, marketing and other operational costs for the nonprofit. Staff is reconsidering the group’s future in the wake of the change. 

Along with state councils, the Humanities Endowment funds individual projects in Wyoming. These include a recent grant to Meeteetse Museums to replace its roof and install solar panels and another grant to the Jim Gatchell Memorial Museum to update Indigenous interpretation. Both were terminated, according to museum directors.

The federal agency also funded the UW Libraries grant. Laing’s first indication of trouble happened early Thursday, they said, when a person connected to a similar project in Florida contacted them asking if they knew what was going on. All that day, Laing heard grim updates from across the country from people who had been notified of cancelled grants. 

“So it was kind of like watching the dominoes fall, and I was just sort of waiting to get the news,” Laing said. Their supervisor delivered that news on Friday. “My job had just been dissolved.”

Keeping history alive  

Laing has spent much of the past five years in a windowless basement office, painstakingly digitizing microfilm newspapers for the project. It’s quiet work, and it suits them.  

Laing gathered microfilmed newspapers from the Wyoming State Archive and worked with vendors to digitize and format the files. The result is that issues of newspapers such as the Platte Valley Lyre, Cody Enterprise and Cheyenne Daily Leader are now on the database. They reach back to 1873, when in a June issue the Daily Leader announced Byer’s Hotel and French Restaurant in Cheyenne was back open following a remodel, and that in Chicago, railroad executive Horace Clark had fallen ill. 

With interest in genealogical research growing, Chronicling America eases access for amateur historians who no longer have to visit these libraries in person to scan microfilm records, Laing said.  

During each two-year grant cycle, Laing endeavored to digitize 100,000 pages. The project was nearing the end of its third grant cycle, with about 10,000 pages remaining to satisfy the goal, they said. 

Laing was actually planning to move on from the job at the end of the year. That fact may take some of the sting out of the loss, but still, they said, “there’s never a good time to lose your job.”

Since the termination notice arrived, Laing’s supervisors have been trying to come up with a plan and have been very supportive, they said. Laing and others are worried about the integrity of the collective work in the long run.

“For a long time, we thought that we were building something that was going to last,” Laing said, “and now for the last couple of days, we’ve been accounting for all of that data, just in case all of that work is lost.” 

Other impacts 

It has been less clear how cuts to the second federal agency, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, will affect Wyoming. WyoFile requested an interview with State Librarian Abby Beaver and had not heard back by publication time. But in an open letter on its website, the Wyoming Library Association said IMLS funds are granted to the Wyoming State Library and pay for a statewide database, staff development and training opportunities. 

Last year, 633 nationwide grant recipients entered into legally binding agreements with IMLS, according to library advocacy group Every Library. “The sudden termination of these grants not only breaches these agreements but also undermines the essential services that libraries and museums provide to communities across the nation,” the organization said in a statement accompanying a petition. The petition oppose the “unlawful” actions. 

The National Humanities Alliance, meanwhile, rallied against the Humanities Endowment cuts. 

“We condemn these actions in the strongest possible terms,” the coalition of cultural advocacy groups said in a statement. “Cutting NEH funding directly harms communities in every state and contributes to the destruction of our shared cultural heritage.”

For Laing, the prevailing feeling is disappointment. They brought up a recent talk they gave to a Wyoming historical society, where members kept Laing and their supervisor late with questions. 

“They seemed really excited about the potential of the project,” Laing said, “and to know that that’s just something that might completely go away seems like a lot of wasted time and effort.”

The post After five years archiving Wyoming history, library specialist fired in latest DOGE cuts appeared first on WyoFile .

Rising furor over the controversial demotion of a University of Wyoming engineering dean has brought the state’s only public four-year university to a tipping point.  

Academic leaders, donors and others decried the demotion as emblematic of a culture of top-down and inscrutable decision making by the UW Board of Trustees and President Ed Seidel. 

Twelve college deans signed a letter expressing “deep concern for the trajectory” of the university — citing the dean’s demotion and mounting pressures on academic freedom. 

And on Monday, the faculty senate overwhelmingly delivered a vote of no confidence in Seidel, the first such vote in recent memory. 

The outrage appeared strong enough to threaten Seidel’s leadership. Professors and deans expressed hope for lasting change to leadership that, according to the faculty senate, has driven the departure of talented academics and made replacing them difficult — ultimately threatening the learning experience for students. 

The gravity of the moment was not lost on Seidel, he told the trustees Tuesday morning, reading from a written statement before they entered a closed-door meeting without him. 

“How we handle this pivotal moment is important for the future of the institution,” Seidel said, “which is clearly facing a crisis.”

After an hour and a half behind closed doors, the board reemerged and issued its response. They will form a committee to study the issue. 

The committee will include two trustees, and most likely one faculty member, one staff member, one student government member, Seidel and the provost, board chairman Kermit Brown said. “That committee will be charged with working on communications and working on ideas to more fully engage shared governance in the university,” he said.

Neither a timeline nor the new committee’s authority were discussed. The trustees are also crafting a “formal statement,” Brown said, “with regard to the current state of affairs and the work of the [new] committee.” That press release will be vetted by the university’s legal department before its release, trustees said. 

The trustees had not published the statement by 6 p.m. Tuesday. 

The trustees did not raise the prospect of imposing consequences on Seidel for losing the faculty’s trust. His current contract extends through the summer of 2026. Nor did the trustees address the underlying issues that sparked furor following Dean Cameron Wright’s demotion — most notably the allegations lobbed across campus that it was a retaliation for Wright’s opposition to funds being shifted from his budget to that of Seidel’s romantic partner, who heads UW’s new School of Computing. 

Faculty senate members considered their vote a risky endeavor. Though many of them are tenured professors, they conducted yesterday’s meeting mostly in a closed session so that senators could feel safe speaking against university leadership. Once the meeting opened to the public, votes on the no-confidence resolution were issued by hand-written paper ballots to avoid any hand raising or spoken votes. 

“You are justified in fearing retribution from this administration,” Bob Sprague, a former chair of the faculty senate, wrote in a letter to the body ahead of its Monday vote. But he also urged senators to “speak truth to power and send a clear message to the entire University community that this administration’s conduct is not acceptable.” 

The faculty senate ultimately voted 43 to 11 to back a resolution that declared Seidel’s leadership “unacceptable,” though it did not call for him to be removed. Instead, in a final paragraph — referenced by Brown when he announced the new committee — it called for the administration and campus to work together to “reestablish an atmosphere of mutual respect, to rebuild trust and a willingness to work together.”

On Tuesday, faculty members returned to a campus Seidel will remain in charge of for the foreseeable future. During a campus town hall the president hosted yesterday, Seidel rejected any suggestions he would retaliate. 

“I am absolutely against any form of retaliatory action,” he said at that event, according to a report in Oil City News. “I’ve been very, very clear about that. And I do not want to ever have any kind of a retaliation against someone for speaking their mind.” 

After days of impassioned statements and letters from his critics, Tuesday appeared relatively quiet following the morning board meeting. Ray Fertig, the faculty senate president, did not respond to WyoFile voicemails requesting comment.

Two outspoken former faculty members, and Democratic Laramie lawmaker Karlee Provenza — who has criticized Seidel’s advocacy for the School of Computing and his conciliatory approach to the Legislature’s efforts to meddle with campus — told WyoFile the trustees’ response fell flat. 

“They don’t have a really genuine, authentic response to anything is what it feels like,” Provenza said. She hoped faculty and deans would continue to push for change if they wanted something beyond the new committee, she said.

“One choice is ‘aw shucks, I didn’t get what I wanted, I don’t have any power in this situation,’” Provenza said. “But I think the other option is we have to build our power. There are more levers of power for faculty, for deans, and I encourage them to exercise those rights.” 

Sprague and former president of the faculty senate, now-retired veterinary professor Donal O’Toole both noted that the committee, as Brown described it, appeared stacked toward the administration and the trustees, with just two faculty representatives and one student on a seven-person body. 

“They will put forward probably some very watered down recommendations that ultimately will be ignored,” Sprague said. Ultimately, he feared the episode will lead to “no substantial improvement to the situation on campus,” and the trustees, he said, will “rationalize [faculty] unhappiness in various ways.” 

O’Toole agreed that the trustees had opted for a tepid, middle-of-the-road path. “Seidel is a known quantity,” he said, “and [in the wake of criticism] he’s certainly saying all the right things.” 

Beginning last week, when the faculty senate leadership expressed dismay in his leadership ahead of the full body’s vote, Seidel has been conciliatory and said he has learned from the uproar. In several statements and in yesterday’s town hall, he promised to renew his commitment to the university’s model of “shared governance,” which, notably, calls for faculty input on the removal of academic officers. 

Faculty members say that part of the university’s governing code was firmly ignored when the board demoted Wright. The board demoted Wright even though every department head in his college — with the exception of school of computing head Gabrielle Allen, Seidel’s partner — called on them not to. 

Coming back from a no-confidence resolution to a place where the campus is working well together will be very hard to do, O’Toole said. 

“On the one hand, I think the faculty senate executive committee thought this had to be done,” he said. “On the other hand, they realized that in the short and medium term it’s going to make dealing with Seidel’s administration pretty frosty … The feeling is ‘we’ve sent the message, let’s hope for the best.’”

The post University of Wyoming trustees keep President Seidel, form committee to address turmoil appeared first on WyoFile .

The University of Wyoming’s demotion of a popular dean this week unleashed widespread criticism toward President Ed Seidel, including accusations he retaliated against the administrator for questioning a funding shift to a department led by Seidel’s romantic partner.

On Tuesday, the university announced that Cameron Wright, who has led the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences since 2019, would return to teaching and give up the dean role. 

An uproar on and off campus ensued, with anger directed toward both the president and UW’s board of trustees. Faculty leaders have expressed a loss of confidence in the president, industry professionals who advise the engineering college have expressed outrage to the trustees and at least one major charitable foundation, The John P. Ellbogen Foundation, announced it is pausing consideration of any grants to UW due to concerns over the dean’s demotion. 

The decision to demote Wright followed a UW Board of Trustees meeting last week where trustees grilled the dean about progress toward achieving a longstanding goal of the Wyoming Legislature — begun under former Gov. Matt Mead — to elevate the college into the nation’s “Tier-1” echelon of engineering colleges. Trustees in that meeting told Wright they weren’t satisfied with his answers, but it appeared he would have another opportunity to respond in May. 

Wright’s supporters, which include Laramie-based state lawmakers and members of a board that advises the engineering school, believe Seidel might have targeted the dean after he resisted pressure to hand over a portion of his budget last summer to a new department. That department, the School of Computing, is among Seidel’s signature initiatives and is also directed by the president’s romantic partner. Wright, at the time, told administrators he could not shift the funds because the Legislature had specifically allocated them for the Tier-1 engineering initiative.

Anticipating the demotion, the engineering college’s 10 department heads signed a letter Monday calling for Wright to remain dean. “It would be wrong, and harmful to morale, to terminate Dean Wright without substantial justifications and a formal review process.”

Demotion sparks anger

That night, the board of trustees gathered for a hastily called closed-door meeting. In a statement to WyoFile, UW said the board decided to demote Wright in Friday’s executive session. “The decision was made by the Board, not President Seidel or his administration,” the university’s statement read. 

The funding dispute did not drive Wright’s demotion, according to the statement. “The University had several performance reasons for his removal as Dean,” the statement, provided by UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin, read. “The College has not met many of these (Tier 1) goals and he could not articulate a cogent plan to make progress on meeting the goals.”

Wright declined to comment for this story. 

The university announced his demotion Tuesday. 

In response, the faculty senate’s seven-member executive committee accused university leadership of ignoring the institution’s “principle of shared governance,” and said Seidel had lost their trust. 

“UW will not achieve its goals without trust in leadership and a willingness to work together, based on mutual respect,” their statement read. “The President’s seemingly arbitrary actions, unwillingness to listen to others and lack of concern for shared governance has eroded what little trust remained between the faculty and his office and has led to a state where the faculty do not have any confidence in his leadership.”

The letter cites a section of UW regulations stating that removing or hiring academic officers “normally shall involve significant faculty participation,” and accuses the trustees and administration of ignoring that guidance.

In UW’s statement, Seidel offered a measure of conciliation. “Trust is essential, and where my actions or words may have contributed to a loss in that trust, I take responsibility,” he said. “I’m committed to growing our partnership through open dialogue and a renewed focus on shared governance — because we can only achieve our goals if we do it together.”

Outside response

But the fallout to Wright’s demotion hasn’t slowed.

On Tuesday, the John P. Ellbogen Foundation, a major contributor to UW energy research initiatives, among other things, sent a letter to UW informing officials that it would pause the funding review process. The letter, which was obtained by WyoFile, cited “recent leadership decisions made by President Seidel, his advisors and the Board of Trustees, particularly those regarding the dismissal of the Dean of the College of Engineering.” 

“The manner and lack of transparency in which business was conducted diminishes the confidence and trust that are foundational to our commitments as a donor,” the letter, which is signed by the foundation’s board, read. 

Members of the engineering college’s advisory board, which is composed of industry professionals, have also written letters to the trustees decrying the decision. Wright had strong relationships with donors, those private sector engineers said, and the university risked donations beyond those of the Ellbogen Foundation.

“You have destroyed the best thing that had happened to the College of Engineering in the last decade and have alienated many people that have been working hard to make this college the best it can be,” Zia Yasrobi, a board member and Jackson engineer, wrote in a letter to longtime UW trustee and the current board chairman, Kermit Brown. 

Seidel came to the university in July 2020 following a previous mysterious and controversial demotion carried out by the board of trustees — that of former president Laurie Nichols. Trustees refused to explain why they had removed Nichols, a relatively popular administrator, until WyoFile and the Casper Star-Tribune sued for records that revealed a secret investigation into her comportment as president.

Beneath the sudden upwelling of rancor over Wright’s demotion lies frustration with Seidel’s drive to establish a School of Computing, which began within the engineering college and has now been established as an independent entity. Seidel’s partner, Dr. Gabrielle Allen, directs the School of Computing.

Allen’s online biography states she was appointed to the position after a nationwide search. But her appointment has driven “general concern, among faculty and legislators,” state senator and UW professor Chris Rothfuss told WyoFile. “There’s no doubt that [Allen] is qualified for that position but that doesn’t mean it’s appropriate to put your partner into the leadership position of your flagship effort at the university.” 

Seidel was not involved in the search that led to Allen’s hiring, according to the university’s statement. Allen has given the university notice that she will end her tenure as director of the School of Computing before the start of the 2025-2026 academic year and return to teaching, the statement reads.

Conflict over budget transfer 

Two state lawmakers who represent Laramie, Rothfuss and Rep. Karlee Provenza, expressed concern last September that Wright would face retaliation for opposing the transfer of $500,000 from the engineering college’s budget to the School of Computing. 

That August, Wright wrote in a memo to the provost that he could not “in good conscience” transfer the money to the School of Computing because the Legislature had dedicated it to the engineering college’s drive to achieve Tier-1 status.“I believe it would be interpreted as being contrary to the intent of the legislature, and would set a troublesome precedent,” Wright wrote. “I believe that in taking that action, there would likely be negative political and financial ramifications for UW.” 

The university has published a “Conflict of Interest Management Plan” that states the funding decisions for the School of Computing will be made by the provost, board of trustees or other administrators and that Seidel generally is removed from major decisions impacting his partner’s employment.

Despite that agreement, Wright wrote that he had discussed the funding change with Seidel both in person and by email, and that the president had pushed for the transfer.

Wright consulted with his advisory board before making that decision, three members of the board told WyoFile. They agreed the money shouldn’t be transferred.

According to Baldwin’s statement, the university reviewed whether Seidel had violated his conflict of interest plan after Wright rebuffed the funding transfer. 

As to whether hiring Allen was a conflict, Baldwin wrote that the university conducted a competitive search for a director of the computing school, and Wright was one of two officials who reviewed applications and ultimately offered the job to Allen. Seidel was not involved in the process, he added. 

The university’s subsequent review of the funding dispute found that the request to shift the $500,000 was prepared in collaboration with the university’s budget department, and disputed Wright’s contention that it violated the Legislature’s intent for the money. 

“The $500,000 was always devoted to Tier 1 goals and was always designed to be part of the [College of Engineering] budget,” the statement read.

In September, the administration dropped the request to shift the $500,000, and, according to Thursday’s statement, Wright agreed that the money could be used for “joint hires” with the School of Computing. 

“The University found that since the President did not direct additional finances to SOC, nor did he affect or direct any academic policy other than to reinforce the original budget and intent of the SOC, there is likely not an actual violation of the President’s [Conflict of Interest] plan,” Baldwin wrote. That finding was backed by the trustees. 

Politicians weigh in

A month after Wright’s August memo, Rothfuss and Provenza wrote Gov. Mark Gordon and asked him to monitor funding for the engineering college to see that it stayed true to the Legislature’s intent. They also asked Gordon to protect Wright’s job. “We are deeply concerned about any potential retaliation against Dean Wright for standing firm on these principles,” they wrote.

Though Wright’s demotion came seven months after his memo, Rothfuss said he believes it remains the driving force behind the move. 

“In my view, it is exactly what I was concerned about along with Rep. Provenza,” he told WyoFile on Wednesday. “I think there was a desire at that point to terminate [Wright]. It was paused until an alternative explanation could be generated.” 

Yasrobi, the advisory board member, shared that view. “It’s a cover,” he said of the university’s statement this week. Wright, he said, had stabilized and advanced the engineering college after years of turmoil. “The things that have happened during his tenure there are amazing,” he said. 

The administration’s determination to establish the School of Computing has sapped resources from the drive for a Tier-1 engineering school, Rothfuss said, “which is literally and precisely what [Wright] was concerned about.” In that light, the criticisms trustees levied at Wright over the progress on that initiative and the public explanation for his demotion are “truly absurd,” Rothfuss said.

In a statement to WyoFile, Gordon appeared to stand by the university’s decision. 

“Changes in any team can be disruptive and I recognize how especially difficult it is to see the departure of Dean Wright,” he said. “On a personal level, my heart goes out to a friend as it does to all those who benefited from his tenure at the University – students, staff, and fellow faculty. As an ex-officio of the Board of Trustees, I have monitored developments in this unfortunate issue. I am confident this difficult step was not taken without extensive and thorough deliberation by all involved.”

The Legislature has grown increasingly socially conservative during Seidel’s tenure, and UW is a target of lawmakers who’ve criticized its diversity efforts and gender studies program. Lawmakers, particularly those in the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, have challenged its funding and ability to craft its own programming and regulate the carrying of guns on campus. 

This year, the Legislature banned spending on diversity, equity and inclusion-related programming. 

Seidel has not opposed those demands as vociferously as many in Laramie would like, Provenza said.

Rothfuss noted that because Wright was dismissed a month after the Legislature adjourned, lawmakers won’t be able to weigh in immediately. But he said it’s clear that a reservoir of frustration with Seidel’s leadership has now burst to the surface. 

“This was a poor decision,” Rothfuss said. “It is pouring gasoline on the embers of a fire.” 

Editor’s note: The John P. Ellbogen Foundation is a funder of WyoFile. The organization has no involvement in WyoFile’s editorial decisions.

The post Demotion of popular dean unleashes anger at University of Wyoming president, trustees appeared first on WyoFile .

Wyoming will appeal the February court decision that found the state unconstitutionally underfunded public schools, according to a Wednesday filing. 

The notice of appeal filed in Laramie District Court asks the Wyoming Supreme Court to review the case anew. 

The appeal comes a month after Laramie County District Court Judge Peter Froelicher ruled the Wyoming Legislature has been failing to meet constitutional duties in the way it funds public schools. The failures ranged from improperly adjusting for inflation and not funding school resource officers to providing salaries insufficient to recruit and retain the personnel needed to deliver the quality of education guaranteed in the Wyoming Constitution.

The case has major implications for the public school landscape in Wyoming. Superintendents and plaintiffs celebrated Froelicher’s decision, telling WyoFile they hope it enables them to hire mental health counselors, fund better nutrition programs, pay for safer buildings and offer better salaries to return Wyoming to a state that attracts and retains the highest-quality teachers.

Plaintiffs oppose the state’s request to halt the ruling while an appeal unfolds, according to court documents. Granting the state’s request “would have the effect of perpetuating the violation of a fundamental constitutional right,” plaintiffs argued.

“This is not an ordinary case where delay might merely cause inconvenience, and the court can easily postpone implementation without harm to anyone,” they argued. “It is a case of delaying the enforcement of right that affects children now and throughout their lives.”

The basket of goods

The Wyoming Education Association, an educator advocacy group with 6,000 members, sued Wyoming in August 2022. Eight school districts joined the lawsuit as intervenors to challenge the state.

The suit claimed the state violated its constitution by failing to adequately fund public schools and has withheld appropriate funding at the expense of educational excellence, safety and security. That has left districts to fend for themselves and divert funds from other crucial educational activities, which causes further systemic erosion, the suit contended. 

Article 7 of the Wyoming Constitution states that the Legislature “shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction.” Landmark court cases further delineated the state’s obligations in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

The more recent of those, the Campbell cases, set the stage for Wyoming’s current school funding obligations. Those cases culminated in 1995 when the Wyoming Supreme Court ordered the state to determine the cost of a high-quality education, fund public schools, adjust funding at least every two years for inflation and review the components of the school funding model every five years to ensure resources are keeping pace with needs and costs. That review process is known as recalibration.

Wyoming hasn’t met those mandates, the WEA suit alleged.

A six-week bench trial took place this summer in a Cheyenne courtroom to deliberate the issue, with plaintiffs bringing a parade of school staffers and education experts who testified on topics ranging from major maintenance projects to school lunches, campus security and staffing.

In his 186-page ruling released in February, Froelicher wrote the Legislature has violated the state constitution on several accounts. 

“The State’s failures have affected Wyoming children’s right to a proper education,” the judge wrote. He ordered the state to modify its funding model in a manner consistent with his order “to assure the school financing system for operations and for school facilities are constitutional.”

Froelicher’s ruling could signal that the state must pump more money into public education at a time when lawmakers have been more interested in cutting spending and promoting private alternatives.

It seems to have had an immediate influence; Senators voted two days after the decision came down to restore the full $66.3 million external cost adjustment — a temporary amount designed to reflect rising costs of living — for teacher and other school staff salaries.

That amount had been recommended and supported by Gov. Mark Gordon but whittled down by lawmakers. 

Recalibration process

Wyoming also filed a motion for a stay pending an appeal — basically asking to freeze the judge’s ruling until an appeal decision is handed down. 

“It is in the interest of justice and will avoid waste of judicial resources to maintain the status quo and stay any further proceedings in this Court pending the outcome of the high court’s review,” that filing argued.

Many of the constitutional deficiencies the ruling identified will be considered and addressed through recalibration of the school funding model, the state’s filing continued, which the Legislature has already authorized.  

In a response, plaintiffs alleged that argument to be disingenuous. “The Legislature was already required to conduct a recalibration and had already planned to conduct the 2025 recalibration without regard to the court decision,” they said. 

Judge Froelicher on Thursday denied the state’s request for a stay. 

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For two years in a row, Wyoming elected officials have chosen not to participate in a federal program that helps feed income-qualified children during the summer months when they can’t get school meals.

First Lady Jennie Gordon hopes to break that streak. 

“Here’s the reality,” Gordon told members of the Legislature’s Joint Education Committee earlier this month. “Thirty-five thousand of our kids who face food insecurity will do so in the summer … It’s not their fault, their families are struggling and can’t pay bills, and we can debate why that is or how we can get those families back on track, but in the meantime, those children should not be left [hungry].”

Gordon was making a pitch for the committee to take it up as an interim topic — which increases the chance for successful legislation on a subject. And this time, Gordon brought more weight. That’s because Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder — who railed against the federal assistance in the past as a welfare program in disguise — also supported lawmakers taking up the topic of childhood food insecurity during the interim session, or legislative off-season.

Degenfelder did not express specific support for the federal program, known as SUN Bucks. But, she said, childhood hunger is worth addressing.

“This is real,” Degenfelder told the lawmaker panel. “Our children are not able to learn properly, and we’re dealing with behavioral issues, because of hunger.” 

The topic will be considered this summer, but not by the Education Committee. Instead, the Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration will wrap childhood nutrition into its work. 

Every five years, that committee of lawmakers is tasked with “recalibrating” Wyoming’s funding model. The job entails a comprehensive review of how Wyoming funds education and what it offers students in its so-called “basket of goods,” or what is being taught. The process also determines how to best distribute that “basket of goods” to Wyoming schools.

It made more sense for the recalibration group to consider childhood nutrition to avoid redundancies, said Joint Education Committee Co-chair Sen. Wendy Schuler, R-Evanston, who also sits on the Recalibration Committee. 

Time is of the essence, said Gordon, who has put a major emphasis on fighting food insecurity with her Wyoming Hunger Initiative. More than 35,000 children statewide are on free or reduced lunches, she said, and there’s another 5,000 without access to the National School Lunch Program because their schools don’t offer it. 

“Please don’t let it go away,” she told the Education Committee at the meeting. “Summer is coming.”

Support and skepticism  

The Biden administration launched the USDA Summer Electronic Benefit Transfer program, commonly known as SUN Bucks, in 2024. 

The program, which aims at supplementing food needs during the months when kids don’t have access to school lunches, furnishes income-qualified families with a debit card loaded with $120 per student — or $40 per month. It can purchase fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy products, breads, cereals, snack foods and non-alcoholic drinks.

Though federal money pays for the program, participating states are tasked with costs and duties associated with administering it.

Summer electronic benefit transfers reduce child hunger and improve diet quality, according to evaluations of a multi-year demonstration project cited by the USDA. The project decreased the number of kids with very low food security by about one-third and supported healthier diets, USDA said.

Nationally, 37 states have signed on to SUN Bucks, including Montana, Utah, Colorado and Nebraska. Wyoming leaders, however, have been skeptical. 

The first time Wyoming declined, Degenfelder blasted it as a welfare program mis-marketed as assistance for kids. 

“I will not let the Biden administration weaponize summer school lunch programs to justify a new welfare program,” Degenfelder told WyoFile. “Thanks, but no thanks. We will continue to combat childhood hunger the Wyoming way.”

The second time, in February, lawmakers defeated House Bill 341, “Summer nutrition assistance for children,” which would have opted Wyoming into the program. Concerns included welfare fraud as well as the types of foods eligible families can buy; they include sugary sodas and highly processed snacks. 

The bill would bring $3.8 million of federal benefit directly to local communities, Department of Family Services Director Korin Schmidt testified. It died in a 25-34 vote.

Renewed effort

In the wake of House Bill 341’s defeat, advocates and lawmakers hoped to bring the issue back to the table. 

About 42% of Wyoming’s students are enrolled in free or reduced meals, a fact that Gordon said demonstrates a significant need. Hunger also has major implications for education.

“Like every mother and grandmother in Wyoming, I know what a hungry child is like,” Gordon told the Joint Education Committee. “They can’t think, and they certainly can’t learn.”

So what programs currently exist for hungry kids? Along with participating in the National School Lunch Program, Wyoming also participates in the federally assisted Summer Food Service program. 

The summer program feeds kids by opening sites — hosted by sponsors like schools or camps — where children can get a meal. Meal sites are located in areas where the local school or census block has greater than 50% eligibility for free and reduced lunches. Wyoming had 92 sites in 2024, in cities like Cheyenne and Laramie to burgs like Hanna, Cowley and Ethete.

SUN Bucks advocates, however, say not all kids can access them — especially in rural areas. 

Filling out the state’s food assistance landscape are community food pantries, charities and backpack programs, which send students home with food to help feed them on weekends. The Food Bank of Wyoming alone supplies items to more than 160 partners across the state, for example. 

But the network has shown precarity; mobile food pantries have recently shuttered or are scheduled to end in Rawlins, Guernsey, Marbleton, Moorcroft and Lusk, Gordon said. Pantries also have closed in Natrona and Converse counties in recent years. 

“There are significant and consequential gaps, especially when it comes to our kids,” Gordon said.

Shame sandwich

When SUN Bucks started, Degenfelder said, she viewed it as a welfare program and opposed how the funding comes only on the debit-like cards rather than in the form of direct meals to students. SUN Bucks also required the state to pay half of the administrative costs.  

“And so I stand by that decision to not look to implement that program,” Degenfelder said. “But we also have an issue here.”

She has heard too many concerning stories like this one: A child goes through the line for a hot lunch only to realize at checkout that his or her debt is too high. The child has to turn back that meal, which is thrown away, “and all of this unfolding in front of their peers,” she said. 

Gordon has similar tales. School districts have racked up debt to pay for some students that aren’t getting enough food through existing programs, she said, and those debts are growing unsustainable. 

“Some districts can only offer children an alternate meal, which is a sandwich and milk or sometimes the juice from fruit cocktail,” Gordon said. “For those children, that’s either the best or the only meal of their day, and they pay for it, because other kids call that ‘the sandwich of shame.’”

Degenfelder’s office has created a stakeholder cabinet to examine ways to improve or increase Wyoming’s summer feeding sites. And there is more work to be done, she said. 

“I think that this committee could be a great opportunity for us to come together to discuss these federal programs, state funding,” and other aspects of the issue, Degenfelder said at the meeting. Ultimately, it was determined that the Recalibration Committee would take it up. 

Lawmakers like Rep. Martha Lawley, R-Worland and Rep. McKay Erickson, R-Afton, were in support of keeping the discussion alive. 

“It’s an important topic,” Lawley said. “I was sad to see the summer program not pass, to be honest with you, and I feel like we can’t continue to ignore the issue, that these children should not suffer.”

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When the Childcare Interagency Working Group launched grants in January offering up to $10,000 to child care providers in Wyoming, it expected high interest. The response was overwhelming. 

Nearly 50 applicants submitted in the first month alone. The volume was so high it prompted the working group to adjust the program timeline. 

The response also indicates what many people in the workforce realm already know, said Micah Richardson with the Wyoming Community Foundation, one of the working group partners.

In Wyoming, she said, “we have so many spaces where there just aren’t enough care providers for the number of families who need this care.” Still, she said, “the response was quite a bit larger than even we thought it would be.”

Organizers initially envisioned a bimonthly award process for the grant, but administrators have amended that to allow for more time to process applications and share resources with interested parties. It will open the next application round on April 1. 

The working group developed the grant as one tool to try to patch the state’s child care gaps. Wyoming lost nearly 200 providers between 2014 and 2024, according to state data. 

Though lawmakers chose to study the issue in 2024, little ground was made regarding policy during the 2025 Legislature. In fact, lawmakers nearly did the opposite when they attempted to strip pre-K qualification from a school voucher program that was signed into law. 

A ‘business problem‘

The Childcare Provider Start-up Grant allotted approximately $72,000 to 10 providers in the first round of funding. All applicants, regardless of granting, also get connected with free support services from The  Wyoming Early Childhood Professional Learning Collaborative, the Wyoming Small Business Development Center and the Wyoming Women’s Business Center. 

Because so many applicants emerged, those connections and follow-ups have taken some time, Richardson said, which helped motivate the timeline change. 

The program represents a partnership involving several members of the working group and others. Among them are the Wyoming Business Council, the Learning Collaborative, Wyoming Department of Family Services and Wyoming Women’s Foundation at the Wyoming Community Foundation.

Grants cover startup or expansion costs and prioritize providers serving communities with limited or no child care options and home-based providers.

Considering the statistics, the definition of a community with limited options could apply to most of the state. Wyoming has a child care gap of nearly 30%, which reflects the difference between the potential need for care for children under 6 and the supply, according to a 2022 assessment. 

It’s a common scenario around the country: Child care operators struggle to make ends meet with strict licensing regulations and workforce challenges. Parents struggle to find a spot for their kids. When they can’t, some are forced to balance work and child care, which makes full-time work tough. Others drop out of the workforce entirely to care for their children. 

But Wyoming’s rural nature and unique characteristics have exacerbated the shortage, with members of the working group arguing that it’s more reasonable to view it as “a significant business problem.”

The working group and grant program are offshoots of a partnership between the Wyoming Business Council, state workforce and family service agencies and Harvard Growth Lab. The partnership’s “Pathways to Prosperity” project, which started in 2022, set out to develop stronger pathways to sustainable prosperity across Wyoming, where the economy is lagging compared to neighboring states in the Mountain West. In examining the state, they identified child care as a source of that lag.

“Much of rural Wyoming is functionally a childcare desert,” the group found.

Estimates point to more than 10,000 individuals who may be out of the workforce completely here due to a lack of child care, according to the group. At the same time, they say, Wyoming is facing a tight labor market — and the dearth of child care further deflects potential new residents. 

“Childcare is something in which states ultimately compete to attract businesses,” their report reads. “Childcare access for their workers affects their bottom-line and childcare access and cost are a problem nationwide. Wyoming is failing to compete and losing out on growth and opportunity as a result.”

The Growth Lab team zeroed in on the supply shortage when developing its child care policy recommendations released in July. 

It urged the state to devote resources to start and grow both large child care centers and home-based operations. After the recommendations came out, working group members split up to focus on three initiatives: getting startup grants off the ground, exploring subsidies for child care workers and examining why child care businesses don’t always access the full range of resources available to them. 

A $50,000 grant from the John P. Ellbogen Foundation plus $30,000 from the Wyoming Community Foundation’s early childhood grant and contributions from others seeded the grant funding pool, and the Community Foundation stepped up to administer the program. 

(The John P. Ellbogen Foundation and Wyoming Community Foundation are both financial supporters of WyoFile. Neither played any role in the repertorial or editorial decision making for this story.)

Other efforts? 

“Response to this grant program confirms what we’ve long known — Wyoming families are struggling to find reliable childcare,” Department of Family Services Support Services Division Administrator Roxanne O’Connor said in a press release. “This funding is a positive step in helping providers open or expand so that they can offer necessary support to working families, but we know there’s still more work to do.”

But so far, lawmakers have been reluctant to support early-childhood education funding efforts. 

Whether to cover pre-K was the most significant difference between the House and Senate versions of House Bill 199, “Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act,” after each chamber amended and then passed the measure. The measure provides universal vouchers for parents who want to send their K-12 children to private schools. The House bill did not give money for pre-K costs, the Senate bill did. 

The issue was at the center of intense late-stage negotiations over the bill, and ultimately lawmakers allowed income-qualified families to receive up to $7,000 to pay for pre-K education.

Sen. Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, fought during negotiations to fund pre-K at the highest level possible. 

“The Senate strongly supported pre-K. That amendment outperformed the bill itself,” he said.

Pre-K was funded in a 2024 school voucher program that had just begun to roll out when House Bill 199 was introduced. More than 40 preschool kids had already been signed up by the time lawmakers debated whether or not to keep it, Rothfuss said, giving further reason to retain it.

The 2024 No. 1 interim priority for the Legislature’s Joint Education Committee was studying early childhood education and child care. During interim meetings, Rothfuss proposed exploring a new state endowment to permanently fund early childhood education, but it was voted down.

This year’s legislative committee interim topics have yet to be finalized. However, the Joint Labor, Health & Social Services Committee has on its list of possible interim topics “childcare sustainability.” 

The state is taking steps to encourage residents to have more babies, said Rep. Jacob Wasserberger, R-Cheyenne, who presented the topic during the committee’s interim topics meeting. It makes sense to follow that by exploring how to make it easier to operate or pay for daycare for those children, he said. 

“There’s likely going to be a multi-pronged effort that is needed,” Richardson told the committee, adding that it would include government-level support. “We are proposing monetary support here. I’m not going to beat around the bush.”

The Legislature’s Management Council is scheduled to finalize interim topics on April 8.

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The University of Wyoming has cut ties with a project that landed it on a list of 45 universities under federal investigation for allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs, the school announced Friday.

The announcement came hours after the U.S. Department of Education said it had launched the investigations “amid allegations that these institutions have violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act …. by partnering with ‘The Ph.D. Project.’” The federal agency described the project as “an organization that purports to provide doctoral students with insights into obtaining a Ph.D. and networking opportunities, but limits eligibility based on the race of participants.” 

The Department of Education launched the investigations a month after it issued a “Dear Colleague” letter giving institutions a two-week deadline to comply with the Trump administration’s interpretation of civil rights law. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has taken broad steps to eliminate diversity and inclusion efforts from government and public institutions.

“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions,” the letter stated. “The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

The university will comply with the investigation and was already looking into the Ph.D Project’s alleged “race-exclusionary” approach, UW spokesperson Chad Baldwin wrote in a statement. 

The university’s College of Business has been a partner in the program “as a way to increase its pipeline of graduate students,” Baldwin wrote. 

When the Wyoming Legislature passed a law prohibiting the university from engaging in “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs, Baldwin wrote that “UW in May 2024 eliminated its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and began a comprehensive review of university practices to eliminate those that promote differential treatment of individuals or classify people on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity or national origin.”

That review flagged the Ph.D. Project and led UW to discontinue that relationship, Baldwin said. 

Political response

That was deeply disappointing to UW alumna Karlee Provenza, a Democrat who represents Laramie in the Wyoming House. 

“My education at the University of Wyoming was incredible, and I benefited from being around all different kinds of people,” said Provenza, who got her Ph.D in social psychology with an emphasis on psychology and the law.

“They’re creating a boogeyman, and they’re setting up hysteria and manufactured rage to try and take down public education,” Provenza said of the Trump-directed investigation. “So when the government comes to dismantle education, the University of Wyoming shows its colors by saying, ‘okay, that’s fine,’ instead of standing up and saying, ‘We have done a damn good job here, and we’re going to continue to do a good job, and you can rip our education out from our cold, dead hands.’ 

“That’s what leadership would look like. But there’s apparently no leadership at the University of Wyoming.”

Republican state lawmakers have been pushing the university to roll back its diversity initiatives, barring the school from spending state dollars on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Last year, administrators closed UW’s Office of Multicultural Affairs, which has existed for 30 years, replacing it with the Pokes Center for Community Resources. Officials also closed UW’s DEI office, though some of its programs were moved to other areas of the university.

Lawmakers weren’t convinced that went far enough, and they passed multiple bills during the recently completed session intended to combat DEI programs. Gov. Mark Gordon vetoed one bill that sought to enact restrictions on curriculum requirements at UW and Wyoming’s community colleges while also barring DEI-related activity within government. The governor  said the measure “introduces ill-defined and overly broad restrictions, creates significant legal ambiguities and risks unintended consequences that could negatively impact Wyoming’s higher education institutions and workforce development.” He signed a second measure, House Bill 147, that bars government agencies from participating in DEI programs, the Sheridan Press reported.

“Governor Gordon is pleased that the University is cooperating with the investigation and that it has already taken steps to identify and review its programs that may involve race-exclusionary practices,” the governor’s spokesman Michael Pearlman told WyoFile in a statement Friday. “The Governor is confident that the University will make every effort to ensure full compliance with both federal and state laws, including this year’s House Bill 147 when it goes into effect on July 1.”

Among the other 44 schools being investigated by the Trump administration are Boise State University, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and Montana State University-Bozeman.

“Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “We will not yield on this commitment.”

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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.

CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to clarify a quote of Katie Dijkstal. -Ed.

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