Governor addresses the concerns of Goshen County students

Kassidy McClun
Posted 12/15/17

Governor Matt Mead joined sportsmen from across the nation to attend the 30th annual two shot goose hunt Dec. 9.

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Governor addresses the concerns of Goshen County students

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Editor’s note: This is the final in a two-part series by Telegram intern Kassidy McClun looking at how cuts to education funding in Wyoming will impact local schools from a student’s perspective.

GOSHEN COUNTY – Governor Matt Mead joined sportsmen from across the nation to attend the 30th annual two shot goose hunt Dec. 9. Taking time from his weekend trip, the Telegram was able to steal about fifteen minutes with the governor to sit down and address the concerns Goshen County students had on Wyoming’s new legislative decisions on the educational budget cuts.
“Three percent of education was cut last year,” Mead said. “Twelve percent of the agencies that I control in government are being cut this year. While oil and gas have come back, the revenue has not been sufficient.
“Comparing the amount of revenue that we have made this year to what we have seen in past years, it has been significantly less,” he said. “The Legislature has responded by making the necessary cuts.”
And unfortunately for students in the state’s public-school system, they have been one of the unlucky few who has seen the budget cuts again this year.
Worried about the budget cuts, many students at Southeast and Lingle-Ft. Laramie High Schools are concerned about the possibility of smaller schools being shut down due to funding shortages. Mead agreed that all schools, large and small, should be worried about this. “Everybody, but small schools in particular, should be worried about the closures, but it is nothing that should be worried about until after the Legislature meets,” he said. “There is great interest in the Legislature that Wyoming is made of small schools and

small towns.
“If you close the small schools, you would be closing down the heart of that community, as many communities thrive around the school of that small town,” Mead said. “As of now, I am not anticipating schools closing down, but we will have to wait until the Legislature discusses this.”
While schools may not close down, they may see fewer opportunities for both athletic and education events. According to Mead, the smaller schools like Southeast and Lingle will not have to compete for funding with the larger schools like Torrington. Mead believes the schools would not be competing with one another directly, but the size of the districts would determine how much funding they would receive.
For instance, a smaller school district like Goshen County would receive less funding than a larger district like Natrona County. Goshen County would then have to decide what to do with the funding it receives, and where it will be used. Unfortunately, again, it would not be enough to continue funding academic programs at the levels that they have been. So, something would eventually have to be cut in some area.
“I would not like to use the word compete,” Mead says about the district’s funding abilities. “All schools across the State of Wyoming will have to deal with the funding shortages.”
Explaining how the budget cuts will affect small school districts in Wyoming like Goshen County, Mead said: “The districts will deal with the budget cuts individually. The districts [as a whole] have a rainy-day fund of $250 million, and as the rainy-day fund runs out, they will then have to deal with the different areas of which they choose to cut. The Wyoming Legislature has no power in deciding which certain areas will be cut; that decision will be left to the districts.”
Nevertheless, it is quite likely the local district will have to cut from somewhere, whether those reductions come from staff payroll or student activities. However, that is a decision that will be decided on a different date.
In anticipation of the upcoming funding shortages, the school district is contemplating the elimination-by-attrition of staff positions to cut down on salary expense, not replacing the position of someone who retires. But that would result in increased student-to-teacher ratios in some areas, an equally undesirable consequence, Mead said.
“A 16:1 student to teacher ratio is what we have now. It could potentially be changed to a 20:1 or 22:1 ratio, resulting in less one-on-one time for students,” he said. “Some believe that this will have an adverse effect on our students, while others believe that this new ratio is appropriate to provide an adequate education for our students. It will not, however, provide the same academic excellence our education sector usually provides.”
Wyoming ranks above average in both previous standardized test scores and is currently ranked seventh in the nation for the quality of its educational system.
As for what the budget cuts will mean for students’ extracurricular activities, the governor says there is a possibility students will have fewer options to choose from.
“Some extracurricular activities will be challenged,” he said. “We will have to wait and see what the Legislature decides on how the extracurriculars will be impacted.
“It is likely that some electives will be cut as they are being challenged with the budget situation,” Mead says, regarding the student’s concerns of limiting the selection of elective classes required for graduation, such as Fine Arts, Foreign Language, and Career-Vocational courses. “The school boards of each district will recognize which electives are important to provide future opportunities for students.”