Some Wyoming public school districts are moving toward restricting homeschool families’ access to pre-high-school level sports and activities just as two new laws empowering the homeschool movement are taking effect.
A few public school superintendents theorize their peers are digging in their heels against the homeschool empowerment laws so they don’t have to participate in their own “demise.”
Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, however, told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that she will propose a law change in the coming weeks to prevent the districts from limiting homeschoolers’ access to middle school and junior high-level activities.
Meanwhile, the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, a group of socially conservative-leaning Republican lawmakers and a significant driver of the new laws, says districts are defying them.
What You Gotta
Wyoming law requires school districts to let homeschool students participate in sanctioned high school sports and activities.
It doesn’t require districts to open middle school or junior high school level activities to those students. Many traditionally have kept that avenue open, however.
In the Wyoming Legislature’s lawmaking session this year, it passed two homeschool empowerment bills into law:
• House Bill 46 says that homeschool families are no longer required to submit their curricula to their local school district. It takes effect July 1.
• House Bill 199 appropriated $30 million in state money to offer school-age students $7,000 each, per school year, to students seeking alternate education, generally on a first-come first-served basis. It also offers some money to qualifying preschool students. It took effect as soon as it became law in March.
Taking the two new laws together, students can access public funds for private or home education and don’t have to report their home curricula to their local districts.
‘Shut The Doors’
Carbon County School District No. 1 is reviewing a proposed policy change to narrow its activity offerings for homeschool students to those it’s required to furnish by law: sanctioned high school activities.
The board discussed the move to “shut the doors” during its May workshop meeting, according to a two-page account of the meeting written by Rawlins homeschool mom Micaela Davison and posted to social media.
The Rawlins-based district isn’t alone: Washakie County School District No. 1 is pushing a similar policy change, the Buffalo Bulletin reported.
Washakie County School District No. 1 Superintendent Tawn Argeris did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.
Davison questioned in the narrative why Carbon County’s district would opt to restrict homeschool students’ access when it can, alternately, become a vendor under the new education savings account (ESA) system and charge for its services for classes and some activities.
Davison has middle school-age children who won’t be able to access sports if this policy change passes, she told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday.
“All of a sudden they’re going to be excluded,” she said, adding that she wrote the narrative because she was shocked at how quickly the proposed policy change was advancing, and she found few homeschool families knew about it.
She’s been contemplating whether the education savings account program is right for her family, which includes an advanced child and a child with health issues.
Davison theorized the proposed policy change is an effort to impact the state’s political arc.
“I think they’re using this as an opportunity to use our kids as pawns to make a political statement,” said Davison. “And they’re using our kids to make their statement at the expense of our children.”
The Thinking
Carbon County School District No. 1 Superintendent Mike Hamel told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday that it’s not as simple as finances.
Davison had quoted Hamel as saying at the meeting, “I believe there is a movement to disable our public education system.”
While Hamel confirmed to Cowboy State Daily he said something along those lines, he was not eager to give more public comments on the philosophies behind the proposed change.
Other superintendents across Wyoming didn’t hesitate to theorize what those philosophies may have been.
Chase Christensen, Superintendent of Sheridan County School District No. 3, said his district is leaning more toward becoming an ESA vendor, charging the tax-funded-scholarship students for activities rather than shutting them out of those.
But he indicated that he and other educators understand the reasoning driving those who shut the doors.
“I think there’s a feeling right now that public education is under attack,” said Christensen. “There’s a lot of sentiment around the state that if we continue to say yes to everything — that if a student wants to leave to homeschool but we let them come in and play basketball and play in the band, and do all these things, we’re participating in our own demise.”
Schools receive average daily membership reimbursements for their student populations.
If a homeschool student attends a public-school welding class, a district typically can claim a portion of a day’s attendance to account for the class expense. But under the scholarship program, a school must become a vendor and bill the student’s account to replace that cost, Christensen said.
As for sports, districts can’t charge homeschool participants any more than they’d charge a public-school participant, which is typically just the cost of jerseys, meals and equipment, Degenfelder confirmed.
Christensen said: "With these policy changes, you’re going to see (districts saying), ‘If you want to take part in what the public system’s doing, then come be part of the public system.’”
Maybe It’s Time To Choose
Sheridan County School District No. 2 Superintendent Scott Stults’ rationalization of other districts’ new restrictions is in line with Christensen’s.
Stults said his district hasn’t grappled with that question yet, though he suspects it will keep providing the same activities access to homeschool students it has in the past.
For Stults, the lack of accountability for parents “choosing to take taxpayer money to educate their children” could be problematic in some cases.
Christensen echoed that.
If a family is confident it can provide a great education to its child through homeschool or private school, “then go for it,” said Christensen. “I’m not against families having options.”
“I am against people utilizing state law and the ESA program, whatever, to hide their kid and not educate them,” he continued.
His fear with the new laws, however, is that “we’re going to see parents that stuff their kids into some program, and take the ESA, and say they’re educating their kids, and they’re not.”
He said it’s also possible that some districts are restricting homeschoolers' access for now while they sort out how the various changes will affect them, and while they focus the efforts of their work on the students who are under their supervision.
In the past, some districts offering activities and sports access to homeschool kids, entertained the thought that “they’ll get a real positive experience” and enroll in the school ultimately, Stults added.
Looking To Change That
Degenfelder said that her office will be in touch with lawmakers soon to recommend a law change requiring the public districts to let homeschool students participate in activities and sports.
That change would close what Degenfelder sees as an unnecessary lapse in the law, letting districts shut out middle school-age homeschoolers.
“It has always been common practice to allow (this participation) at the middle school and junior high level” though the law only specifies high school activities, she said, adding that her office will be proposing a change as soon as possible to the legislative Joint Education Committee.
As for the districts struggling with the new homeschool empowerment laws, Degenfelder called for patience and perseverance, saying some laws require perfecting over the course of more than one year.
“It’s important to remember disagreements between adults pale in comparison to what’s best for the student,” said Degenfelder. “And our focus should always be on what’s best for the individual student.”
There Was Also This Controversy
Neither new education law changes a requirement in Wyoming statute 21-4-106, which says each school district’s board of trustees much hand its attendance officer a list of names of children within compulsory school age in that district. The board is required to report to the authorities when a child is habitually truant, potentially for a child neglect investigation.
House Bill 46’s language does not change that requirement.
Numerous school districts are still seeking notification from parents who choose to homeschool.
The Freedom Caucus said HB 46 repealed a permission slip requirement, though the language of the bill targets curriculum specifically.
"Homeschool parents are no longer required to get permission slips to educate their kids at home,” the group said in a statement last week.
Where prominent legal counsel working with school districts and school associations have landed, is that school districts still should require parents to notify the district when they disenroll their kids for homeschool — and that they should notify the district at least once to say they’re homeschooling generally even if they don’t disenroll, Christensen said.
“We’ve run into a couple places in law from the bills passed this spring where the Freedom Caucus passed the bills they did,” he added. “But the actual effect of the law wasn’t quite as far as they wanted and now they’re upset the law didn’t do what they wanted to do.”
The bill’s original sponsor, Rep. Tomi Strock, R-Douglas, did not respond by publication time to a request for comment.
Degenfelder, a proponent of HB46, indicated in a Friday comment she's looking to clarify the language around this issue.
"We have already begun contacting districts and working in partnership with the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office to develop statewide communication on this topic," she said.
Editor’s note - this story has been clarified to specify that the Freedom Caucus wasn’t referring to a mandatory attendance list when it opposed school districts’ approach to HB 46.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
