School board chairman’s leaked post on candidates raises ire at meeting

CASPER, Wyo. — A private Facebook post by Natrona County School District Trustee Chair Kevin Christopherson imploring friends and close contacts to consider his unambiguous recommendations for school board candidates raised ire during public comment at the board’s regular meeting on Monday.

The post endorses the five candidates supported by the Public Education Builds Community Political Action Committee and advises against voting for the four Moms for Liberty candidates. Christopherson referred to the latter group as “the moms for tyranny” and said two of the sitting board members of the same group were “not helpful.”

Christopherson apologized to those two sitting board members during his closing comments.

Jayme Lein, now unopposed for the House District 38 seat after winning in the primary, said she was speaking in her capacity as a parent and concerned citizen when she called for Christopherson to be removed from the position. She cited the board’s code of ethics and its directive to “resist every temptation and outside pressure to use [a] position as a school board member to benefit either [oneself] or any other individual or agency apart from the total interest of the school district.”

Christopherson identified himself as the board chair in the post.

“It’s inappropriate for board members to make disparaging remarks, especially on social media, while identifying as trustees,” said Leslie Hollis. “To clarify, Moms for Liberty focuses on empowering parents to defend their rights at all levels of government.”

Michelle St. Lewis also spoke on the post, further identifying the group’s priorities: academic rigor, responsible spending, “keeping [Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion] out of schools [and] keeping porn out of the libraries.”

House District 57 Representative Jeanette Ward also went to the microphone. “It is extremely unprofessional, unethical, and potentially illegal for the president of this board to make his preferences for school board elections known in his official capacity as board president on social media.”

As observed by Oil City News in public meetings since August, Christopherson has sparred mildly with fellow trustees Mary Schmidt and Jennifer Hopkins over the late inclusion of an item related to a capital project to the agenda.

Trustee and returning candidate Kyla Alvey, favored in the post, addressed the post during trustee comment.

“I only ask that as a community you give us the ability to work it out amongst ourselves,” Alvey said.  “The added pressure and contention of picking sides and adding fuel to an already building fire doesn’t help. When it’s brought to our attention, it allows us to know where the misstep happened and we can work to fix it.”

“Everybody has a right to view things however they see fit, and they can support candidates they feel they can support,” Schmidt said on Monday. “I just hope that we can do it in a professional manner, and that we can look at disputes and disagreements as an intellectual exercise, not as a personal vendetta, and use language that expresses it as such.”

Christopherson apologized to the two sitting trustees named in the post, saying his overriding priority was the welfare of the kids in the district.

“If I see something I don’t like, I say it, and that’s been a fault that I share with my favorite president: Trump,” Christopherson said. “I did a private post, unshareable, to my private friends, and, like an idiot, it got out there.”

Oil City News spoke to Christopherson and district spokesperson Tanya Southerland after the meeting. Sutherland said that the district had no comment on the private social media post.

“I learned my lesson,” Christopherson said.