State budget funds rural schoolhouse in Garrett, Old Slade demolition

Two major local school construction projects — one establishing a new small schoolhouse, the other demolishing an unused former elementary school — are explicitly funded in the new biennium budget.

The state budget passed by lawmakers and signed into law by Gov. Mark Gordon last weekend includes ample funding for proposed school construction projects in Albany County.

From the state’s school capital construction funds, $300,000 has been set aside to establish a rural schoolhouse in Garrett, while additional funds have been set aside for the demolition of Old Slade, a property that has sat empty for more than a year in the heart of north Laramie neighborhood.

The funding does not automatically trigger either construction project — both require additional work on the part of the district to get moving — but with money officially set aside for the new one-room schoolhouse and the long-awaited demolition, both projects are one significant step closer to reality.

“We want to make that Slade property better for the neighborhood, and when that school goes down, I think it’ll really help,” Albany County Schools Superintendent John Goldhardt said. “And then with the Antelope Creek School, we want what’s best for them — and to make sure that every child in our district has an incredible education.”

The long road to Antelope Creek

Anna and Carson Anderson have been campaigning for the establishment of a one-room schoolhouse near their ranch in Garrett for nearly half a decade.

The Slow and Easy Ranch — where the Andersons live with their two children, Emmitt and Waverly — is an hour from Rock River in good weather and completely cut off from the wider world in bad.

With little faith in her own capacity to homeschool the children and even less faith in the value of an online elementary education, Anna has said rural schooling is the best and only real option for her children.

“One-room schools are necessary in our state,” she writes in a response to the budget bill’s passage. “Not only do they work, but they mean that rural children do not have to settle for interactions with peers and teachers through a screen. In one-room schools, they get the interaction and human connection we know they need to thrive in this life. In one-room schools, children in Wyoming are promised these gifts of education without the risks of long distance travel on dirt roads in inclement weather.”

In 2022, the Andersons got the news they were waiting for: the Albany County School Board had approved the “Buckle School,” agreeing to construct the actual schoolhouse and pay for the live-in elementary teacher.

Emmitt Anderson sits atop a snowbank at his family’s ranch in Garrett, Wyoming. // Photo courtesy of Anna Anderson

But those plans were ultimately axed by Brian Schroeder, then-Superintendent of Public Instruction, who argued the rural school would be too expensive.

The Andersons brought a lawsuit to force the state’s hand, but it was unsuccessful. That lawsuit was not, however, the Andersons’ only line of attack. Advocating to and through state lawmakers — especially Rep. Trey Sherwood (HD-14) — the ranchers fought for the inclusion of explicit state funding in Wyoming’s biennium budget.

Hearing testimony from Anna and Carson, Sherwood and her fellow Joint Appropriations Committee members added an amendment to the budget bill, specifying that the state would set aside: “For site work and to provide a rural school facility located in Albany county school district #1, as a priority identified by the legislature and not included in the budget recommendations of the school facilities commission, three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000.00).”

That amendment went untouched by lawmakers, even as those same lawmakers offered some 300 amendments to the state budget, decreasing and increasing appropriations or using the power of the purse to institute policy.

When Gordon signed the budget bill into law last week, it became official: there was money from the state for the Andersons’ long sought-after school.

“It is extremely validating to have the support of the legislature in this project,” Anna writes. “We are so thankful that the House and Senate came together and allocated the money for our potential rural school in Garrett. We hope to continue working with the Legislature in the future to get a bill in place that would hopefully protect all rural children in Wyoming who need one-room schools.”

But the school isn’t built yet. Technically, it’s not even approved because the approval process has to start all over again.

On April 10, the Albany County School Board will decide whether to approve the Garrett school — now dubbed “Antelope Creek” — and could decide to reject it. The $300,000 in the state budget does not mandate approval. It simply makes the money available should the project be approved.

If the board approves the creation of Antelope Creek, it will have to hire contractors to actually set up the school, which will take the form of a small modular building and a separate “teacherage” trailer. It will also, of course, have to hire a teacher.

“You need somebody who is fine living alone,” said John Goldhardt, superintendent of Albany County School District No. 1. “You are isolated — and it’s a nice area, it’s quiet, it’s peaceful — but it’s not something for everyone … You also have to like teaching a small, little, teeny group who are all at different levels, like the old one-room schoolhouses of yesteryear when we had all the kids together at all different levels.”

If the school board approves Antelope Creek, the proposal will head up the chain to State Superintendent Megan Degenfelder, who will have the final say.

A spokesperson for Degenfelder would not comment on the specific Antelope Creek proposal when reached for comment this week.

“Superintendent Degenfelder will evaluate any request that comes to her from Albany 1 on this issue,” Spokesperson Linda Finnerty writes in an email.

Offloading Old Slade

Since school let out for the summer of 2022, “Old Slade” has sat empty as its former students continue their education one block to the north in the bigger, newer Slade Elementary School.

The school district is now looking to offload the older, unused property. While there was some initial interest in selling off the parcel as-is, ultimately no such deal could be secured. Goldhardt said there were even conversations with a nonprofit looking to turn the Old Slade plot into affordable housing, with some of those lots set aside for teacher housing — a commodity in short supply — but ultimately this plan fell through.

So the Albany County School Board moved ahead with plans to demolish the building and sell off the lot — or rather, the 17 zoned lots the building and school grounds currently occupy.

As with the Garrett school, this construction project required approval at various levels.

“Old Slade” has sat dormant since letting out for the summer of 2022. It could be demolished soon. // Photo: Jeff Victor

The school board voted to demolish Old Slade in 2023. The board’s demolition plan then went before the state’s School Facilities Commission, which also approved the demolition, pending state funds.

Those state funds are now in place, thanks to a line in the school capital construction budget setting aside exactly $2,634,698 for the demolition of both Old Slade and another school in Platte County.

Now, ACSD No. 1 can put out a request for proposals and receive bids for the demolition project. Whoever takes on that task will be dealing with asbestos, as Old Slade was constructed in the 1950s, and will have to take additional precautions so as not to blanket the local neighborhood in carcinogenic fibers.

“Then after the demolition is completed, we will sell the land,” Goldhardt said. “Because [the state] is paying for the demolition, if we sell the land, we have to pay them back the amount it cost for the demolition.”

The 17 lots that form Old Slade’s footprint are residentially zoned for limited multifamily housing. Under this R2 zoning, developers could build single-family houses, duplexes or townhomes with no more than four units a piece. Goldhardt could not say whether the property would be sold as one or if the district would sell off lots individually.

“We’re still looking at the cost of that because we would need to do the improvements for every lot — the power, the sewer, water connections and so forth,” he said. “And what we’ll need to do is weigh out: is it worth making that investment so that we’d actually come out ahead, or would we not come out ahead? And do we want to get in the real estate business?”

But Goldhardt said it would likely sell quicker if it was sold piecemeal. Old Slade is in a good neighborhood with trees, he said, and the property is just one block from the new Slade Elementary.

“Our real hope was that we could get some more affordable housing in Laramie — but once we sell the land, of course, it will be developed by whoever purchases it,” Goldhardt said. “And I don’t know what the market value will be for the land. That’s something we’ll have to determine once the demolition is completed and everything’s ready to go.”

Goldhardt said the district will start seeking bids for the demolition “soon.”

“We'd like it to happen this summer,” he said.