A man who was recently serving as senior policy adviser for Gov. Mark Gordon and who served previously in both public schools and as a deputy education superintendent in Wyoming has declared his bid to become the next state Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Chad Auer, 54, of Cheyenne, joins the race against state Rep. Tom Kelly, who is a 56-year-old Republican of Sheridan. His last day with the governor's office was Friday.
Both men have earned advanced educational degrees and have experience as educators and in government, setting Wyoming up for a heavyweight GOP primary election in this race Aug. 18.
The incumbent, Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, is not running for the seat again as she’s racing state Sen. Eric Barlow and Cody Republican Brent Bien for this year’s GOP nomination for the governor’s seat.
“As I talked to people around the state, you know, I told them I was thinking seriously about running,” Auer told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday phone interview. “It was overwhelming how supportive people were.”
He finds the prospect of serving as Wyoming’s top educator exciting, he said, adding, “I feel very blessed to have the opportunity."
Auer said he hasn’t sought any endorsements at this juncture, but the governor has encouraged him to run.
In Gordon’s office currently, Auer’s focus areas include education, digital innovation, regulatory reform, housing and tribal relations.
He served two decades in educational leadership and as a teacher, principal and school improvement administrator before earning his law degree from the University of Wyoming, says Auer’s biography. He also has a master’s degree in education administration and a bachelor’s degree in biology.
He wrote that he has experience with traditional public schools, charter schools and online programs in rural, inner-city, suburban and Native American communities.
He served previously as the mayor of Firestone, Colorado, and held other community leadership roles.
He has told Cowboy State Daily that he believes Wyoming can improve literacy, expand trades education, implement school choice, modernize its accountability systems and keep safe and orderly classrooms “without falling into the trappings of partisan whiplash.”
His Tuesday press release announcing his campaign echoes that, saying he believes in focusing on education, not indoctrination. It also says, “Auer aims to support seamless pathways for students to enter high-demand careers in the Cowboy State’s core and growing industries: energy, agriculture, tourism, healthcare, manufacturing, technology and more.”
During his tenure as the deputy superintendent of the Wyoming Department of Education, he led a statewide school safety tour, convening roundtables with law enforcement, parents, and students, the statement says.
He pledged Tuesday to prioritize dedicating funding for school resource officers (SROs), mental health support, and strengthening school infrastructure.
Auer earned his juris doctorate from the University of Wyoming College of Law in 2021. He holds a master’s degree in education administration, leadership, and policy.
After his tenure as a Colorado mayor, he wrote Tuesday, “Our family chose to call Wyoming home, because of Wyoming’s education system and it would be an honor to help make our schools even stronger.”
Auer is married, has three grown children and one grandchild on the way.
Incoming
The next Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction will see the tail end of the Wyoming Legislature’s second year of recalibrating public school education costs.
The Legislature passed a bill this year that modernizes the way the state funds K-12 public education. But it delayed some topics — like school resource officers, how many computers students need and how much school meals should cost — for another study session in the coming year.
Any law changes from that study would unfold at the winter lawmaking session in early 2027, once the new superintendent has taken office.
One of the most controversial aspects of the recalibration law that became official this month without Gordon’s signature is an instructional “silo” preventing school districts from using money for instructional pay and purposes in other areas — like support staff and equipment.
Gordon derided the silo. The lawmakers who ushered it into law said it was the key compromise on which the education funding package hinged.
“I don’t oppose the educational silo, but I think it’s incomplete,” said Auer, adding that he prefers local districts to retain enough flexibility to exercise oversight. “I would have preferred that we not have an instructional silo. But now that we do, I think the next part of the conversation needs to be how, then, do we also support the operational side?”
Auer said he's pleased that teachers are slated to receive raises.
He said he recognizes that Wyoming has a constitutional duty to fund education appropriately, but limited resources in which to do it.
The question of whether Wyoming funds its schools to a constitutionally appropriate level is churning in the Wyoming Supreme Court – in the latest of decades of cases on the matter.
Auer said he would prefer that Wyomingites solve these problems in the arena of debate rather than handing them to the courts, but he declined to comment on the case otherwise.
Tom Kelly
Kelly, Auer’s opponent for the GOP nomination bid, told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday phone interview that he welcomes Auer into the race.
“This is good news for Wyoming,” said Kelly. “With his credentials and his professionalism — I look forward to having substantive and useful, high-level discussion on policy and governance; versus some of what we’re seeing right now in campaigns.”
Kelly declined to elaborate on specific campaign exchanges, saying people familiar with the news cycle will know what he’s referencing.
Kelly spent 10 years as a public-school teacher, paraprofessional, or mix of the two jobs.
He has six children. Most of those are adults, but one is a special needs child currently in public school, said Kelly.
He also has a master’s degree in education and a PhD in political science.
Kelly describes himself as a refugee from bad policies, saying he fled the left-leaning state of Illinois for Colorado, until Colorado became “just Illinois with mountains.”
He came to Wyoming in 2019 with his family but felt that if Wyoming “went” to the political left there was nowhere left to flee.
“So I ended up in public office,” said Kelly.
Kelly served this term on the House Education Committee and the Select Committee on School Finance Recalibration and told Cowboy State Daily prior in an earlier interview that both of those have refined his understanding of how Wyoming public schools run and are funded. He also said he’s become familiar with people working in that system.
Kelly was unable to attend most of this year’s legislative session because of what he’s described as an excruciating back injury requiring surgery.
He’s healing now and will be ready to travel and campaign soon, he said.
He would have voted yes on the final version of the new recalibration law, and believes the instructional silo is a good measure to ensure teachers get the raises for which they’re slated, he said.
Kelly had tried without success in January to remove an unpopular provision of the law’s earlier draft, which would have required school employees to join the state’s insurance plan. Lawmakers removed that provision ultimately during session, and Kelly celebrated that Tuesday.
“I was the only member on the Recalibration team to try to get rid of the mandate,” he said. “I couldn’t even get a second (vote in January). I ended up winning on that one.”
Kelly describes his education policy style as grassroots, saying he’d like to see more district-led, less state-led curriculum.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
