GREEN RIVER — Parents, students, coaches and even a state legislator packed Tuesday’s Sweetwater County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees meeting to push back against proposed cuts to extracurricular activities, urging trustees to hold off on eliminating programs while the state works to fix a funding shortfall created by Wyoming’s school finance recalibration.
Speaker after speaker told the board that cutting sports, speech and debate, theater and other activities would do lasting harm to students.
State Rep. Scott Heiner addressed the board directly, acknowledging the legislature failed to anticipate how changing the funding model from school-based to district-based enrollment would affect activity funding.
“It was never the intention of our recalibration committee or the legislature to reduce funding for activities,” Heiner said. “When you pass a large bill, there are some unintended consequences that you don’t catch, this is one that we did not catch. No one caught that, 93 legislators, the governor’s office, the WDE (Wyoming Department of Education), many school districts did not catch that.”
Heiner said activity funding is on the agenda for a June 25 recalibration committee meeting, which he confirmed is open to the public. He also said he had spoken with Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder about allowing co-curricular activities such as FFA, marching band, and speech and debate to be funded outside the instructional silo through final rule writing expected in June.
Do not cut any programs at this time, let us fix the problem
House District 18 Rep. Scott Heiner
Student Jeremy Neal spoke on behalf of peers across multiple programs, proposing a community-supported model in which students take on coaching assistance and event management roles under faculty supervision to offset staffing costs.
“We are not asking for everything to remain exactly the same,” Neal said. “We are asking for collaboration for a solution that keeps student opportunity while acknowledging financial reality.”
Anna Kimble, an assistant tennis coach at Green River High School, pointed to the spring tennis program’s growth from three girls participating a decade ago to roughly 85 students this year.
“Cutting spring tennis would not just remove a sport,” Kimble said. “It would remove opportunities, relationships, mentorships, and a program that has clearly demonstrated growth and value within this district.”
She said the board could eliminate assistant coaches pay and the program could eliminate overnight trips and pursue additional fundraising to reduce costs.
I would be more than willing to volunteer to coach
Assistant GRHS Tennis Coach Anna Kimble
Chairwoman Ashley Castillon urged residents to attend the June 25 meeting. She acknowledged the weight of the decisions facing the board.
“We know that behind each budget decision, there are children, coaches and sponsors who are being affected,” she said. “We are working hard to make fair and reasonable decisions by ensuring that no single group bears the entire burden of these state-mandated cuts.”
Superintendent Scott Cooper noted the district had already trimmed nearly $1.2 million in ongoing operational expenses since early fall without laying off any staff. He warned, however, that a newly flagged provision of the recalibration bill could strip an additional $275,000 to $450,000 from the district’s budget by recapturing half of all interest earned on district funds, a detail he said surfaced abruptly the Wednesday before the meeting.
The board said it plans to hold a workshop dedicated to the full activities budget before the preliminary budget is finalized in July.
