Wyoming’s Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder admonished the School Facilities Commission for laughing on-camera about a lawsuit parents recently filed against them.
The laughter came at the close of the commission’s Tuesday meeting, when Chair Jack Tartar told everyone to “have a Merry Christmas, and enjoy being sued.”
His comment was met with chortling among commissioners and State Construction Department staff. “Ho ho ho!” someone responded, and another said he should have worn his Grinch tie.
The joke appeared to reference a lawsuit filed Dec. 6 in Laramie District Court against the commission and department over a controversial plan to close eight Laramie County elementary schools.
“I ran for State Superintendent because I was tired of the rights of parents being stifled,” Degenfelder said in a Friday statement. “Parents have a fundamental and constitutional right to direct their child’s education and we must stop treating the concerns of parents as a laughing matter.”
Plaintiff Katie Dijkstal was shocked and saddened to see commissioners and agency employees “openly laughing at our rights as parents to pursue this petition,” she said.
“In Wyoming, we value parents’ rights in education and this behavior demonstrates a flippant disregard for those rights,” Dijkstal told WyoFile. “My small child permanently losing her school, along with hundreds of other children, is no laughing matter and neither are our legal procedures in Wyoming.”
The lawsuit
The legal complaint followed the commission’s adoption of a plan recommended by the “Most Cost-Effective Remedy” study, known as a MCER, on Nov. 7. The study was commissioned to determine the most affordable way to address a mounting array of building-condition and capacity challenges facing Laramie County School District 1.
The study’s proposed remedy — known as 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 lawsuit brought by parents Dijkstal and Franz Fuchs alleges the commission’s selection of remedy four was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and unsupported by substantial evidence because the analysis on which SFC relied was statistically flawed, and SFC relied on irrelevant and inaccurate evidence that no reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support its conclusions.”
Fuchs’ children would attend Deming Elementary School, while Dijkstal’s children attend or will attend Jessup Elementary School. Both schools are slated for closure under the plan, along with Miller, Hebard, Fairview, Bain, Lebhart and Henderson elementaries.
The study resulted from a routine, and legally mandated, statewide screening assessment for educational buildings deficient in either conditions or capacity. The School Facilities Division hired a third-party contractor to complete the work.
The lawsuit seeks judicial review and reversal of the MCER adoption.
“These Cheyenne parents are concerned because their neighborhood schools are being taken from them,” Degenfelder said in her statement. “They have every right to seek legal redress in court and should be taken seriously by state leaders. I am disappointed in the lack of professionalism and empathy displayed at the School Facilities Commission.”
The School Facilities Commission is independent of the Wyoming Department of Education. Degenfelder sits on the commission but doesn’t vote; a staffer attended the Tuesday meeting virtually on her behalf.
WyoFile requested comments from Tartar and the construction department but did not hear back by press time.
It’s very odd that parents must have the “right” to direct their children’s education rather than allowing highly trained professionals to determine how our district’s children might best be educated.
Will they also be instructing medical staff regarding the proper treatment of their children when those kids are sick or injured?
Or does training matter just sometimes?
I agree that the comment/reaction at the end of the School Facilities Commission meeting was unprofessional and uncalled for. But obviously the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ms. Degenfelder, who has a seat on the Board, didn’t find the meeting important enough to bother to attend personally, and neither did her staff member who sat in virtually. It’s time that our elected officials start taking their responsibilities seriously and show up when they are supposed to. Voting or non voting members can and should offer valuable feedback on agenda items. Stop delegating this stuff to staff members, do the job the people of Wyoming elected you for and expects you to do. Period!
Megan is playing the I want to be Governor card at the expense of reason and the Constitution.
In essence schools get placed where the majority of new students are located, but as those students pass through the system, there is little incentive for the parents of those children to move from their houses. So eventually these schools close and new ones are opened where the younger parents can find housing. This phenomena has been happening forever across America and seemingly there has not been a different model being proposed to slow this down. I have advocated for increasing taxes on houses with no children that are located within a certain range of a public school while offering reduced taxes for the childless in other parts of a town. In other words tax based incentive zoning, which is designed to protect the public taxpayer investment in a school. Instead we close perfectly good schools and build where the new customers are located.
Megan also seems to think that parents have more of a right to say how their kids are educated than another taxpayer and that is not part of the deal. How public schools are operated as well as the expectant standards for these schools impact ALL of society and allowing all of society to have an equal say makes for a better system and a better educational outcome. Public schools have always educated and parents have always indoctrinated in spite of the rhetoric one hears.
I do not want my tax dollars to go to a parent that wants to send their kid to a religious school, not one cent. Religion is indoctrination and not part of a good public education.
I wouldn’t put much stock in Degenfelder’s comment. She is part of the problem.
Thank you Megan for your statement. It is so sad these schools are marked to be closed. My kids went Jessup and it is a wonderful school. I my kids were lucky to be able to go to a local school and not be bused across town.