In the latest blow to Wyoming’s controversial universal school voucher program, a judge has denied the state’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit challenging it.
The Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act program has been dogged by constitutionality concerns since well before it was enacted into law in March. Educators and parents filed suit in June, and Wyoming’s attempts to advance the voucher payments in the face of the lawsuit have repeatedly failed.
The program is designed to offer Wyoming families $7,000 per child annually for K-12 non-public-school costs like tuition or tutoring. The scholarship would also offer money for pre-K costs, but only to income-qualified families at or below 250% of the federal poverty level. It was passed amid a wave of school-choice laws, particularly in Republican-led states like Wyoming.
However, Wyoming’s constitution makes public education a paramount state commitment. Critics of the universal voucher program say spending public funds on private education violates several of the state’s constitutional obligations and have long warned the matter would end up in the courts.
So far, state gambits to circumvent legal challenges have been unsuccessful. Laramie County District Court Judge Peter Froelicher granted a temporary injunction pausing the voucher program in June, then extended that injunction in July. More recently, he denied a request by Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder and others to let the law take effect while they challenge the injunction.
In the newest decision, issued Aug. 28, Froelicher denied the state’s motion to dismiss, determining that plaintiffs do have standing to sue. In the order, Froelicher also determined that Wyoming’s State Treasurer Curt Meier, who the lawsuit names, is a valid defendant. The state asked that Meier be dropped from the suit.
Degenfelder, who championed the voucher program as a major school-choice win, has expressed dismay over the lawsuit’s impacts on families who had already applied and were awaiting funds to pay for costs like textbooks, tutoring or private school uniforms for the 2025-26 school year.
Rocky road
The universal voucher program represents a major expansion of the state’s 2024 education savings accounts, which offered money to income-qualified students for private school tuition or homeschool costs.
The 2025 bill transformed that program by stripping income qualifications so that the $7,000 would be available to everyone.
The bill ignited one of the hottest debates of the recent session. It sparked a deluge of feedback, both from school-choice proponents and critics who called it unconstitutional.
Lawmakers transformed it before it passed out of the Legislature; they brought 26 amendments, including 11 that passed. They also repeatedly questioned the constitutionality of the expanded program. Many urged colleagues to hold off and allow the existing education savings account program to roll out before changing it so drastically. Those requests did not sway the body.
The new program’s application opened on May 15, attracting nearly 4,000 student applications. But in June, nine parents of school-aged children and the Wyoming Education Association, which represents more than 6,000 of the state’s public school employees, sued Degenfelder, Meier and the state of Wyoming.
A previous Wyoming Supreme Court ruling on education funding “found that ‘education is a fundamental right’ in Wyoming, that ‘all aspects of the school finance system are subject to strict scrutiny,’ and that ‘any state action interfering with [the right to equal educational opportunity] must be closely examined before it can be said to pass constitutional muster,’” the lawsuit reads.
This voucher program, plaintiffs assert, does not pass that muster. That’s because “the state cannot circumvent those requirements by funding private education that is not uniform and that meets none of the required state constitutional standards for education.”
In addition, the program is unconstitutional because it violates constitutional language that allows the state to give public funds only for the necessary support of the poor, the lawsuit argues. Instead, it’s an example of “gratuitously funneling public funds to private individuals and entities, regardless of whether they are poor and regardless of whether that support is necessary.”
Parents who signed onto the case oppose the voucher plan due to the harmful impact it will have on their children, according to the lawsuit, “because private schools receiving voucher funding can refuse admission to children with disabilities … and are not required to provide special education services or comply with [individualized education programs].” They are also concerned that private schools can refuse to admit and educate children who identify as queer, transgender or non-binary.
The voucher program will also negatively impact funding at public schools that the parents’ children attend, the lawsuit says.
By rejecting the state’s motion to dismiss, Froelicher accepts “the individual harms alleged in the complaint as true,” according to his order.
What’s next
The Wyoming Attorney General’s office in July appealed Froelicher’s preliminary injunction preventing the Wyoming Department of Education from transferring or paying out funds to participants of the program.
In a July update on the Wyoming Department of Education’s site, Degenfelder said she is grateful the attorney general appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court, but informed the public that “the appeals process is still extensive, and, unless the injunction is stayed while the appeal proceeds, may cause the program funds to be unavailable for most of the 2025-26 school year.”
It’s interesting that people think it’s ok to force people to pay for education, but not ok to actually for them to choose what type of education their own children receive with those funds.
Do the majority of people against the voucher system even have children in school, or are they the people making a living off a failing ‘education’ system at the expense of others?
Competition inspires and demands better quality of services.
Why are some people so afraid of that?
Carl,
Your oversimplification of the term “competition” is about as helpful as Ayn Rand’s book was to our economy.
You dont want your child to be educated in the public school system. Fine, pay for your choice. Don’t expect others to subsidy your personal decisions. And really Megan, money for school uniforms?
“Don’t expect others to subsidy your personal decisions.” Isn’t that what’s going on now? All taxpayers, regardless of their preferences, are forced to pay for those that want their children in public schools. That is an absolute subsidy for the personal decision to attend public schools.
I get your argument, but my come back is this…..how many homeowners pay property taxes that are $7K annually for education? and that of course would be for 1 child. So yes, we are subsidizing personal choice. With no oversite and no testing requirements this program is ripe for fraud. I’d rather refund the taxes paid by proposed voucher recipients, have the state match those $$ to public education and we’ll see just how many school choice families we have left.
I work in public education and am against the vouchers. My biggest complaints about this voucher program and the $7,000 that a family gets per student is that one of the people who co-wrote it and voted for it happens to homeschool her own children. So Rodriguez-Williams needs to recuse herself from any kind of voting on a bill like this because she’s going to make out like a bandit was $7,000 for each of her children who are still in school. There’s also no oversight into saying that they have used the money for Education purposes. They say that it goes into a general fund for the family to use but I don’t know that there is any real oversight into how that money is spent.
“Private Uniforms”? Don’t parents of public school children have to furnish their own clothes? Greedy!!!
That was my major concern in the article as well. They’re upset that they can’t buy school clothes for their kids because Degenfelder tried to push through something unconstitutional? A little self-awareness would help them see that’s exactly how marginalized communities have been treated by their GOP leadership for decades.
This needs to allow parents choice not all schools are excellent but If I pay taxes which I do and Parents choose to send their child to a Christian school give them the voucher don’t let the union stop you from doing the right thing.Lynnette Davis Cody Wy
It’s against the Wyoming constitution. If you want your kids to go to a private school, pay for it yourself.
pay for your private school yourself
Lynnette: I do not have children, so using your line of thinking does the state owe me a refund? After all, my taxes are funding public schools.
I’ve not had children in the school system for 35 years yet almost half my taxes support a system I no longer use. At some point there should be tax relief for older citizens.
Ah, but Richard when your children were in school, you and a lot of others were paying for their education. Now it’s time for you to pay for those coming after them, just as your children will pay for their children and so on. Fair, maybe not, but I’d much rather invest my $$ in local services, many of which I do not use, but someone in my community does. BTW, have you checked into any of the states refund programs?
Everyone seems to be regurgitating the same baseless arguments against this. They want you to pay for your children’s school yourself. The same people are ok with you paying for school for other people’s kids on top of your expenses for your own children.
The only other argument is the claim that it violates the State Constitution. The courts will decide that. Not the comment section.
What’s clear is that none of these people against vouchers dare mention improving quality of education for Wyoming children.
The only way to improve education for Wyoming students is to keep their schools fully funded.
Better funded public schools means better teacher pay. Better teacher pay means more teachers. More teachers means smaller class sizes. Smaller class sizes means more individualized instruction. Better funded schools means expanded school lunch programs.
Expanded school lunch programs means less hungry students. Students learn better when their bellies are full.
Privet school does not automatically mean better education.
you haven’t worked with a flat-earther before have you?
have you worked with someone in a lab environment that believes the earth is only 4,000 years old?
or that humans walked with dinosaurs? how about someone who was unable to work with any women because they thought they belonged in the home raising kids and shouldn’t have any sort of job?
I have experienced all of these examples. common denominator was that they were home schooled or went to private religious schools.
i don’t expect you to trust my anecdotal evidence. but maybe you will understand that the wyoming constitution doesn’t allow public taxes to pay for private schools.
you want private schooling for you kids? pay for it yourself.
First, Public Education hasn’t seen any real cuts to funding and vouchers don’t cut funding so it’s a mute point. Actually, the funding for Public Education keeps going up while the results decline.
Next, You’re right, I don’t trust (or believe) the anecdotal evidence, especially when it mocks real findings where the types of education you attack outperform Public Education.
I will concede that there’s almost always outliers in any groups if you look at large enough samples. But using outliers as a baseline isn’t honest, despite what has been normalized by pharmaceutical research.
the whole push for vouchers is dishonest on its head. it’s not about the “quality” of education. It’s about the religious right not wanting their kids to hear anything that differs from their own religious beliefs. the science and social program hating religious folks are trying to get money for teaching their children nonsense.
you still haven’t addressed that the wyoming constitution doesn’t allow public money to go to private schools. it doesn’t matter what statistics you try and provide. illegal is illegal.
i say this as someone who has had 2 kids go through public schools, with a 3rd graduating next year. your religious beliefs aren’t special. if you want your children to parrot what you believe, pay for it yourself.
Carl, you’re wrong, vouchers will cut funds to the public school districts. from the Wyoming school foundation program: “The Wyoming School Foundation Program provides a guaranteed level of funding to every Wyoming public school district. This “guarantee” is a block grant and is based on a number of factors, the most important of which is the number of students enrolled in membership in the district in the prior year.”
Somebody said the only true argument is because it’s unconstitutional………pretty solid argument. You want change, then address it properly, put it up to a state wide vote. Then everyone has a chance to vote their choice on the topic.
Improve education for who? Not the non elite lower socio educated lbgtq+ poc kids
While giving people some choice to divert their property taxes to a school of their choice sounds reasonable, the reality is that for the vast majority of people who are in line for vouchers, their tax contribution to schools is probably $500 to $1000 per year or maybe much less. It looks more asking other taxpayers to subsidize private education while not having any voice in those decisions. We all elect local school boards and the superintendent of public instruction.
As one of the people funding schools with my payment of taxes I have to say that I would much rather my taxes go to public schools. And as worried about budget as the FC seems to be they should want to fund public schools as well, because when 7k goes to a school and/or a school district that money is facilitating the education of 50-1000 students depending on the school/district size. And I would hope that they know that 50 is greater than 1, so it’s a much smarter investment to spend 7k to educate 50+ students than it is to spend 7k to educate 1 student. But that might be asking to much from the F-Dumb Caucus.
Actually 7000.00 is only half of what the public school system receives to support just 1 child. The public schools in uinta county rwcieve 14,000.00 PER PUPIL. To support our children In public school.
In uinta county, we are charged admission fees for the year, every year. We are also charged for the chromebook every year even tho the kids have had the same chromebooks since 3rd grade.
As well if the fees aren’t paid by a certain date, the school adds any missed fees to the cost of the annual yearbook for that child.so our year book goes from 25 to 180 + on top of school lunches, band music rental, and school t-shirt attire for concerts. And many many more! …. free education my butt!
Where is the 14,000. 00 going if I pay fees for every activity my children do??
The money is gifted to the school, put into a lump account and is funneled off to special sports activities like football games or volley ball. Even tho in order for your child to be involved in one of those sports you have to be a star. My child tried out for basketball last year… he was the only student at practise that didn’t make the team, but he’s very althetic, competitive and plays great, but is slightly disabled.
So he was allowed in to track. Track is not a sport they spend money on. My kid went to track meets most of the year and didn’t even get to do an activity becuase the coaches didn’t tell him how to sign up for one even tho he was there and super excited to be a partof it. Uinta County sucks.and I for one would happily pay my taxes so another family could take thier child education else where.
What a complete crock of bovine fecal matter. Vouchers hurt none.
Constitutionally illegal for public tax money to go to private schools. Why are you struggling with the concept of legal and illegal?