Degenfelder Says Stopping School Choice Payment Has Brought ‘Utter Chaos'

Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder said that a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking school choice payments has brought “utter chaos” to the families of the roughly 4,000 students in the program. 

Degenfelder spoke about 1st Circuit District Judge Peter Froelicher’s ruling Wednesday on the Cowboy State Daily Radio Show with Jake Nichols. 

Froelicher’s ruling came down Friday in a lawsuit brought by the Wyoming Education Association and a handful of parents that challenges the constitutionality of the state’s school choice voucher program, the Steamboat Legacy Scholarships Program.

The Wyoming Legislature allocated $50 million to fund first-come, first-served payments of up to $7,000 to fund the education of children not enrolled in the state’s public schools. The payments will go to registered educational institutions — public schools can register — that help educate the child in the program. 

The payments will not be made to parents. 

The Lawsuit

The Wyoming Education Association is a nonprofit organization that works in Wyoming’s schools and colleges “to help improve public education and the lives of Wyoming’s students,” according to its website.

The organization filed a lawsuit in mid-June asking the court to temporarily stop the payments until their constitutionality can be determined. 

“Where I think the WEA hit an all-time low was in their filing dates,” Degenfelder said. 

The lawsuit was filed less than three weeks before the first payment was to be made and the Wyoming Education Association requested a temporary ruling be made two days before the first payment, Degenfelder said. 

The Steamboat Legacy Scholarships Program became law on March 4 with the first payments to be sent out to educational institutions July 1. 

‘It’s Wrong’

“We have upward of 4,000 students and their families that have just been sent into utter chaos with the timeline,” Degenfelder said. “That’s really what’s unfortunate here out of everything. It’s wrong, it’s terrible.” 

Degenfelder said her office received an email from a low-income, single mother who took a job with the expectation that the scholarship would help her daughter attend a pre-K program. The woman doesn’t know if she’ll have to quit her job and the superintendent’s office can’t give her any information, Degenfelder added. 

The Wyoming Education Association continues to disagree strongly with the superintendent’s “misinterpretation of the facts at hand,” President Kim Amen told Cowboy State Daily. 

A call to the Wyoming Education Association for clarification on how Degenfelder was misinterpreting the facts of the case was not returned.

“We will continue fighting for Wyoming’s students and families, for all education professionals and for the incredible public schools across our state,” Amen said. 

The Challenge

Wyoming Education Association lawyer Greg Hacker argued in mid-June that the program violates the constitution by not funding a uniform, thorough and adequate education to each of the state’s students. 

The Steamboat Scholarship Program is a totally separate account from those used to fund public schools, Degenfelder said. 

Payments to private schools violates another constitutional prohibition forbidding them, Hacker added. 

Some of the parents have argued the program is unconstitutional because gay, transgender and nonbinary students could be turned away by private schools. 

“That’s the big question: where is the actual harm. Can they show there’s irreparable harm to anyone?” Degenfelder said. “We can’t find any evidence that a child otherwise in the public system would be harmed at all by this.” 

Froelicher is expected to make a permanent ruling in mid-July. 

Until then, everything is in a holding pattern, Degenfelder said. 

A party disagreeing with Froelicher’s permanent ruling would be able to appeal that decision to the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Matthew Christian can be reached at matthew@cowboystatedaily.com.