Wyoming’s school voucher program remains in limbo as court order extends block on spending

UPDATE: The Wyoming attorney general’s office filed a notice of appeal on July 17, signaling the state will challenge the injunction. -Ed.

Money for Wyoming’s universal school voucher program will remain in limbo after a Laramie County District Court judge on Tuesday extended his temporary block on the new system. 

The controversial program was slated to begin dispersing state funds on July 1 to Wyoming families for non-public school costs like private tuition or tutoring. 

In a Tuesday order, Judge Peter Froelicher extended what had been a temporary freeze. His preliminary injunction essentially bars the state from releasing any Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act funds until he determines whether or not the program is constitutional. 

Plaintiffs believe it is plainly not. The Wyoming Education Association, which represents more than 6,000 of the state’s public school employees, and nine parents of school-aged children filed a June 13 lawsuit targeting the program. In it, they argue the program is unconstitutional because it violates constitutional language that allows the state to funnel public funds to private entities only for the necessary support of the poor. But the program’s K-12 component is not limited to low-income residents.

“We’re pleased with the decision,” WEA President Kim Amen said about the Tuesday order. “We filed the injunction because we’re confident that it’s not constitutional.” Because of that, she said, WEA wanted to ensure the state didn’t start down the road of disbursing funds only to have to claw them back or account for them later if the program is found unconstitutional. 

Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Deganfelder, who has championed the voucher program as a major school choice win, expressed regret that the court hold-up has impacted families who already applied and were awaiting funds to pay for textbooks, tutoring or private school uniforms. 

“As one of nearly 4,000 Wyoming families, you have had your lives unnecessarily upended through no fault of your own,” she wrote in a public message, referencing the number of families that have applied since May. “This constitutional dispute could have been handled in a different way to not cause such harm to you.”

Amen pushed back the narrative that her organization is to blame for hurting families. 

During the heated legislative debate on the vouchers, she said, “everyone was warned that this was likely unconstitutional, or at least pieces of it were unconstitutional. And they went ahead and passed it.”

The lawsuit

The Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act, which gives funds both to K-12 families and income-qualified pre-K students, comes as a school-choice movement grows nationwide, particularly among conservatives.

Still, it caused a lot of tension in Wyoming’s majority-Republican Legislature as lawmakers grappled with whether or not it adhered to the state’s constitution, which makes public education a paramount state commitment.

Rep. Ocean Andrew, R-Laramie, who sponsored and championed it, called the state’s 2024 education savings account program much too narrow. His 2025 bill transformed that program by stripping income qualifications so 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 supporters of school choice and critics who called it an unconstitutional measure that will erode the quality of public education in Wyoming.

Legislators repeatedly questioned the constitutionality of the expanded program and said they didn’t want to land in court. Others urged the body to hold off and allow the existing ESA program to roll out and work out any bugs before transforming it so drastically. 

But the matter did end up in court, with the lawsuit alleging multiple constitutional violations. It names Degenfelder, along with Wyoming State Treasurer Curt Meier and the state of Wyoming, as defendants. 

The program will negatively impact funding at public schools, according to the lawsuit, because as students leave public schools, districts will lose funding under models that rely on enrollment numbers. The program also lacks transparency and does not hold voucher participants to the state’s established standards and oversight concerning the quality of education provided in public schools, the lawsuit states.

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, the lawsuit asserts, 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.”

The lawsuit asked the court to block the voucher program with a preliminary injunction and find it unconstitutional. 

Plaintiffs met their burden of proof to trigger that injunction, Froelicher ruled Tuesday, and Wyoming will continue to be barred from paying out any funds. Civil cases can take months, or even longer, to be resolved.

WEA called the move “a crucial step in protecting our constitutional promise of a free, fair, and equitable public education for every Wyoming student.”

Degenfelder, meanwhile, said she is working with the attorney general’s office on options for Wyoming to challenge the injunction. “We will continue to keep you apprised of the situation, and I will continue to fight for school choice in Wyoming.”