CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Parents and educators spoke with trembling words Monday night as they provided feedback on possible school district changes that will “completely change our community.”

The community pushed back on a plan to close eight of the district’s 30 elementary schools at the Laramie County School Board meeting. The plan is tied to a recent study conducted throughout the district — the most cost-effective remedy, or MCER, study that the district recently completed and published. The report recommends the district close eight schools, replace four facilities and build two entirely new schools over the next 11 years.

If the district accepts the study’s proposals, then the state of Wyoming will distribute funds to the district to carry out those plans. The MCER study sets aside significant funding to replace Arp Elementary and construct a new school for fifth- and sixth-graders in the South Triad. Some schools even received financial blueprints for demolition.

The MCER study aims to identify a long-term plan to address district facility and educational needs at an affordable cost, according to Shelby Carlson, school facility division administrator with the State of Wyoming’s School Facilities Division. Any budget considerations laid out in the report are then passed onto the Wyoming Legislature.

“The school facilities division made the decision to look at the entire district to ensure that we develop a long-term facility and financial strategy to ensure the district’s wide student education needs would be met,” Carlson said.

Although the plan may have identified a path forward in line with the school district’s capabilities and academic vision, parents such as Katie Dijkstal argue the “human cost” will be too steep.

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Members of the public wander through the new Coyote Ridge Elementary School on Tuesday, Aug. 13 in Cheyenne. (Jared Gendron/Cap City News)
“The research is crystal clear on the consequences of school closures,” Dijkstal said. “The findings show quite clearly, that without question, school closure has a negative impact on student academic and social achievement. By moving forward with these closures instead of exploring remediation options, we are knowingly harming students. We must find another way.”

Other parents concurred and accused those who completed the study of ignoring public input, including the City of Cheyenne, during its research.

Members of the Board of Trustees sympathized with the public’s concerns but hesitantly and unanimously voted to accept the study. Several trustees recognized the all-or-nothing funding deal the state is offering the district and decided to take it. They said schools in the South Triad, such as Arp and Cole, are in desperate need of support.

“This sucks,” Trustee Brittany Ashby said. “There is nothing about this that is useful. … I don’t think we have a choice.”

Trustee Alicia Smith concurred.

“We’ve dealt with some junk. And we’ve had some hard votes, and we’ve had a lot of disagreements up here. This is the hardest vote that has come before me in four years. I hate this. … I hope you understand, we did not choose this. We did not ask for this. … I hate that this finding pits our community against each other.”

The MCER study

The state coordinated with the company Facility Engineering Associates to prepare the study, according to Carlson. Research for the study began in January.

Bill Small, principal of FEA, presented the study results to the board and public at Monday night’s meeting. He explained the condition and capacity needs for various schools in Cheyenne. Arp, Sunrise and Saddle Ridge elementary schools each have their own capacity needs, which means the schools have too many enrolled students for what the facility can handle. Hobbs, Jessup, Miller and Buffalo Ridge have facility condition needs.

The key objectives for the study were to examine the district’s 30 elementary schools and:

  • Address district capacity needs
  • Align with statewide adequacy standards
  • Provide a long-term solution for the district’s facility needs
  • Balance factors such as cost and educational outcome
  • Address current and future enrollment needs

Recommendations are split up into two phases. The first spans from now to 2030, while the second lays out changes intended to occur anywhere from 2031 to 2035. Phase 1 suggestions would utilize existing appropriated funds, while Phase 2 changes would require future requests. Six of the seven schools with outstanding needs are addressed in Phase 1.

Small said one of the goals with the study was to preserve the district’s three triads: south, central and east. The following sections review key recommendations for schools across the triads.

Once the district accepts the study, then the state begins work on obtaining funds for building construction, Carlson said.

South Cheyenne

The study recommends replacing several facilities and forming a brand-new school in south Cheyenne.

The MCER study suggests replacing Arp Elementary by 2028. During the previous school year, Arp enrolled just under 300 K–6 students. The study wants to increase enrollment to around 500 students with a capacity of 550 but change its grade configuration to K–4. Meanwhile, the report suggests reconfiguring Sunrise Elementary to house fewer students and also be a K–4 institution. The building had just over 300 students last year. The study finds that Sunrise would be best suited to enroll roughly 100 fewer kids.

In addition, the report believes LCSD1 should begin requesting funding for a new school in south Cheyenne for fifth and sixth graders. The study believes the school should open in 2027 and serve close to 600 students. Fifth- and sixth-grade students at Arp and Sunrise would migrate to this new school.

After Arp has been replaced, the district should start requesting funds to replace Cole Elementary in 2034, per the study.

Aside from improvements and alterations to other schools, the following facilities should be decommissioned in 2029, per the report: Hebard, Bain, Fairview and Lebhart. Small said these schools were identified because they are the oldest facilities in the south triad. It’s then up to the district and state to decide how to handle any buildings taken offline, the FEA principal said.

The total cost for these buildings’ changes is as follows:

  • Arp replacement: $45,708,580
  • Bain demolition: $1,702,196
  • Cole replacement: $29,629,966
  • Fairview demolition: $1,324,264
  • Hebard demolition: $1,766,034
  • Lebhart demolition: $1,502,798
  • New 5–6 South Triad school: $48,888,307

Central Cheyenne

Like Arp, Hobbs Elementary should be replaced, the study recommends. The replacement school should open sometime in 2030 and serve roughly 300 students. Currently, Hobbs has around 200 students.

Three schools are recommended to be taken offline. Jessup Elementary, which enrolled over 100 students last year, is suggested to be shut down in 2027. Miller Elementary with under 70 students should close in 2025 and Deming Elementary with 82 students would be decommissioned in 2026, per the report.

The district’s newly opened Coyote Ridge Elementary is the only school in the study with plans slated entirely in Phase 2. Starting in 2031, the district would begin requesting funds to construct additional space for the school, which currently serves over 420 students in grades five and six. The report suggests increasing enrollment to around 570 students and extending capacity to beyond 650. At the start of this school year, students from Hobbs, Jessup, Davis and Prairie Wind migrated to Coyote Ridge.

The following is a list of cost estimates for Central Triad facility plans:

  • Coyote Ridge addition: $11,144,551
  • Coyote Ridge II – new school: $28,491,688
  • Deming demolition: $1,253,746
  • Hobbs replacement: $33,846,341
  • Jessup demolition: $1,691,097
  • Miller demolition: $1,069,553

East Cheyenne

The study suggests Saddle Ridge Elementary, which is currently over capacity, should downsize its enrollment sometime in 2032 from over 350 students to under 230. This would be the same year a second school serving Saddle Ridge students would open. The new facility would serve about 130 kids from grades K–4 and have an upper capacity of 250 students.

Meadowlark Elementary should also see significant changes in 2032, per the study. The school, which serves grades five and six, currently has a little under 500 students. The MCER report wants to add additional space in Meadowlark to increase enrollment to over 700 students and cap capacity at 800.

Although Buffalo Ridge was recently renovated, the building has a conditional need. However, the study doesn’t recommend the district make any changes to the school. Meanwhile, the report believes Henderson Elementary should close in 2032.

The following are the cost estimates for these projects:

  • Henderson demolition: $1,910,404
  • Meadowlark addition: $19,908,067

A full copy of the report can be viewed below.

Public comments at board meeting

Close to 20 community members spoke during the public comment period Monday night. The majority of speakers disapproved of the study’s recommendations; many said students would be negatively impacted if seven facilities closed and facilities grew dramatically in enrollment.

One man, a father of two 4-year-olds, lives near Deming Elementary and walks his children to school. He said something not being considered in the study is the impact to school walkability and the city’s road system. Furthermore, he is put off by some schools increasing the amount of students they serve.

“It is actually really terrifying as a parent to see a five to six-grade school that has 800 kids projected,” the speaker said. “Is that really what we want as a community?”

Mother Patricia McCoy said she was eagerly awaiting to read the MCER study but was let down upon seeing its suggestions. As she notes, students under the new configuration would attend four schools during their time in public school prior to graduating. She believes a three-school model for grades K–5, 6–8 and 9–12 is the best approach.

Educator Lisa Hurd at Arp Elementary urged the board to accept the MCER study. She said that the district’s three triads suffer inequity disparities and that good schools are built on strong leadership. Facility size, she said, matters less than buildings with quality educators. Another person, a mother of an Arp Elementary student, acknowledged other speakers’ feelings on the study, but she implored the board to consider using its current resources to help lift up underserved schools.

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Prairie Wind Elementary School, LCSD1, Central Triad (Lisa Hushbeck/Cap City News)
“My son and 329 other students have been passed over for what seems like decades,” the mother said. “We’re stuck. We’re not going anywhere, I am sorry. Our school facility is not where it needs to be currently. We’ve been living like this for ages.”

Another mom, Katie Christopherson, said she believes the MCER study’s recommendations are fair and accurate.

“I’m aware that there’s grief and big changes proposed in the study,” Christopherson said. “Jessup’s projected closure will impact my first-grader, too. … I don’t know if changing to larger elementary schools is the ideal answer, but it seems to be the most cost-effective answer for the economic outlook our state faces.”

Parent Marcie Kindred said the all-or-nothing approach to funding in the MCER study has left the board with no satisfying answers. She ultimately said the board should accept the state funding proposed in the study.

“I know that we have this money now, and I know that the makeup of the Legislature is about to drastically change. And I don’t know if we will ever see money like that again,” Kindred said. “We have to pay attention to the Legislature, and we have to stop focusing on these culture wars, because this is what happens in the meantime. While we were talking about books and masks for two years, we could have been talking about alternatives. But here we are.”

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Cole Elementary School, LCSD1, South Triad (Lisa Hushbeck/Cap City News)
Mother Lindsay Woznick, also a local attorney, said the MCER saddened her because it suggests “gutting” seven local schools. She said it was also disappointing that the study was conducted without public engagement.

“This is a big deal,” mother Lindsay Woznick said. “It is going to completely change our community. The study was done by 15 people with, as they’ve all said, zero community involvement, zero parental involvement, zero educator involvement and very little actual involvement from the district. … So we’re going to gut our community. All these kids are going to go to these massive schools. It’s going to completely change what it looks like, and our kids are going to be hurt. And in the study, no one ever mentioned what is best for the children.”

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