Lab school legislation advances
The bill forces UW and ACSD No. 1 to work in tandem. A co-sponsor of the bill voted against it following testimony from UW’s lobbyist, school district officials and former teachers.
The Senate Education Committee advanced legislation aiming to preserve the University of Wyoming Lab School with a 3-2 vote Wednesday.
Senate File 126’s primary sponsor, Laramie Sen. Chris Rothfuss (SD-9), is a member of that committee. He told his fellow lawmakers that keeping the lab school open would serve a crucial state interest — despite both UW and Albany County School District No. 1 angling to close the school and “move on.”
“This needs to be a legislative decision,” Rothfuss said. “This is a state institution.”
Legislators — including Albany County’s entire bipartisan delegation — have been pushing to reverse the imminent closure of the lab school. The clock is ticking; if no bill is passed this session, the school will permanently close at the end of the current academic year.
While the initial disagreement was between the school district and the university, those institutions are now united in opposing SF126. But lawmakers — alongside lab school leaders, former teachers and former students — want to preserve the school and reinvigorate its historical purpose as a “laboratory” for new educators.
“It looks to me like what’s happened is that both the university and the Albany County school district have found it bureaucratically inconvenient to work together, and that’s what’s led to the current problem,” said Casper Sen. Charles Scott (SD-30), another member of the education committee. “The fact that they’re destroying a good school doesn’t seem to bother them … I’m going to vote for the bill because it has been such a successful school, and we need those kinds of schools.”
Committee Chair Sen. Wendy Schuler (SD-15) voted against the bill despite being listed as a co-sponsor. She said the testimony she heard Wednesday left her feeling “torn” about the proposal.
The bill must survive three readings on the Senate floor before it can head to the House for further consideration.
Battle lines
The UW Lab School is run by Albany County School District No. 1, but it’s located on the University of Wyoming campus.
It has long served as a unique educational facility, where aspiring teachers enrolled in UW’s College of Education can hone their craft and where K-8 students enjoy an alternative education characterized by project-based learning, outdoor opportunities and easy access to campus facilities.
But today, Sen. Rothfuss said, “the flexibility and freedom of the school [is] not what it once was.”
“That led to tension with the University of Wyoming, where it wasn’t operating really as a lab school anymore,” he said. “It was operating as a public school that happened to be on the University of Wyoming campus.”
Negotiations between the school district and the university broke down over disagreements regarding security at the facility and control over curriculum. The university decided to close the facility, giving the school district one more year on campus before the planned closure. The district followed up this eviction notice by deciding to shutter the school rather than relocate it.
Though the parties failed to agree on a path forward, they are now united in their desire to be done with the lab school. UW’s position is that a lab school, in general, is no longer needed, given that future teachers can be placed in schools around the state.
“We just realized through that negotiation process we don’t need the lab school, [or] what was the lab school but is no longer operated as a lab school,” Mike Smith, UW’s lobbyist, told the committee. “We don’t need that specific space to provide that function. We don’t need that space to be innovative, to help the state address a shortage of teachers, to help the state look for new ways to teach.”
The school district’s position, post-eviction, is that a lab school operating anywhere else just wouldn’t be the same. For example, the proximity to campus resources and the connection to the College of Education would be lost.
“The movement to save the lab school is an impassioned one full of really well-meaning people,” Albany County School Board Trustee Nate Martin told the committee. “And for good reason. The lab school is a place that was a very positive thing for our community. But I think that we need to move forward. I’m not convinced that this bill is a vehicle to get us moving forward.”
Martin agreed with UW that the lab school, as it exists, might no longer be the best way to train teachers.
Martin’s wife, Laramie Rep. Karlee Provenza (HD-45), is a co-sponsor on the lab school legislation he testified against. He said House members “I’m close with” might have substantial amendments for the bill regarding funding should it advance to the other chamber.
Money troubles and local control
Albany County Schools CFO Trystin Green also took aim at the bill’s funding provisions during testimony Wednesday.
By mandating a partnership between the university and the “resident school district,” the bill would keep the lab school on Albany County School District No. 1’s books.
“Essentially, you are taking $2.5 million from our revenue and hurting the good things that we are intending to do and trying to do,” Green said. “You made a very good point that you want this lab school to serve a state mission. So if it’s to serve a state mission, then why is one district being required to pay for it? Why not put it under the state and allow the state to make this what it wants to be, not at the cost of one district?”
Rothfuss said framing the bill as the state “taking” $2.5 million from the district is “misleading.”
“These are funds that were previously going to fund teachers at the lab school. What will happen in the future? These funds will go to fund teachers at the lab school,” Rothfuss said. “It’s not a taking, it’s not diminishing the capacity of the district.”
While it might be the same money for the same students, Trustee Emily Siegel-Stanton said dividing district resources between fewer schools would be more efficient. She urged the committee to vote down the bill and allow ACSD No. 1 to close the lab school.
“With four elementary schools in Albany County, we will have the right number of schools at the elementary level for our population,” Siegel-Stanton said. “That allows us to use resources such as administrative salaries, special education teachers [and] art, music and PE staff efficiently. It also allows us flexibility as we face these continued substitute teacher shortages.”
The trustee added the bill fails to address some practical aspects of its implementation.
“It offers no fix for the physical space,” Siegel-Stanton said. “We looked in 2020 at a cost effective remedy for that building — but [the School Facilities Division] doesn’t want to pay for buildings that UW owns, and UW doesn’t want to pay for improvements to a space used by the school district.”
She added SF126 will “force a partnership between two entities with declining resources,” while trampling local control.
“This bill is an action of government overreach,” Siegel-Stanton said. “The decisions about our school population and resource allocation need to be left to the people elected in the county to make these decisions and not forced at the state level.”
Rothfuss countered that the closure of the UW Lab School was decided “unilaterally” by the university, not the school board, so local control was already off the table.
“When the board made its final decision at the December meeting, they didn’t have a decision,” he said. “The decision had already been made by the university. There was no way, no vote could be taken, no motion to be made, that would have been: ‘Let’s keep the lab school open.’ It wasn’t a decision. It was a meeting where that reality was provided to the public because the decision had been made by the university.”
Is the lab school still necessary?
Lawmakers argue the lab school is a state institution serving a unique purpose: the training of Wyoming’s future educators. UW and ACSD No. 1 argue the lab school has run its course: once a great institution but now outdated.
Kate Kniss, the school district’s chief academic officer, said future educators get plenty of hands-on training in other schools — including in other Albany County schools not far from campus.
“We place 90-plus students a semester in practicum placements,” Kniss told the committee. “That takes a concerted and collective effort across our district. And what that means is that the lab school does not hold the vision of pre-service education. Our district does.”
In addition to these “practicum” placements, Kniss said the district has placed “more than 300 student teachers” since 2020.
“That is only College of Education students,” Kniss said. “Our district also plays host to kinesiology, music education, art education, special education [and] service programs for psychology, counseling.”
But preserving a school that values experimentation and diverse teaching styles would strengthen Wyoming. That’s according to Jennifer Mellizo, who taught music at the UW Lab School for 22 years and testified in favor of the bill.
She said the lab school was not what it once was, but that it had — and could again — serve as “a bridge between research and practice.”
“I was initially drawn to the lab school because music was valued as a core part of the school curriculum,” she said. “There was an MOU in place that provided more minutes in areas like music and art and ensured that I would be trusted, as a professional, to design my own lessons and units within the framework of our state standards.”
Mellizo said this allowed her to offer a diverse range of instruction and activity and to launch “non-traditional” student performing groups such as a steel drum band and a Zimbabwean marimba ensemble. When she started a Ph.D. program in 2012, Mellizo said the lab school allowed her to explore “integrated educational approaches” — such as by incorporating songs that supported phonics skills or social studies standards.
But the former teacher said the school no longer supports this level of creativity.
“In December, the board voted to close the ACSD No. 1 iteration of the school — a shadow of a place that it was just three short years ago,” she said. “However, they should not have the right to decide the fate of the school itself — a uniquely Wyoming institution that has always adapted and evolved based on the needs of our state and the people who call it home.”
Mellizo urged the committee to support the bill.
“Wyoming needs a laboratory school,” she said.
Thank you for the details of the testimony. It sounds like the lab school is like a lot of things at the University and across the state - once great, but now diminished due to poor leadership and a lack of vision.