Behind the curtain — Emails reveal school board clashes, secret decision-making
RIVERTON — In late January, the legislative session was coming into full swing. HB100, which was later scuttled, would have lifted nearly every teacher certification requirement in Wyoming; other legislation was expected to have lasting financial ramifications for public schools. Elected school leaders and education staff across the state put pen to paper.
Some school boards submitted testimony to the legislature rallying against bills. In Lander, school staff began reaching out to district leaders, asking: When will you take a stance?
“I urge you to publicly express your commitment to the teachers of Fremont County School District #1,” wrote one Baldwin Creek teacher. “Please affirm that you recognize their expertise, value their contributions, and stand against any efforts to diminish the standards of our profession. A clear statement from the board would provide much-needed reassurance to educators, students, and families alike.”
Then, on January 31, a letter signed by each Lander School Board member was emailed to every district staff member and to the media.
The letter, titled “Standing together in support of public education,” did not take a stance on any piece of legislation but instead expressed general encouragement for school employees during a time when “teachers can feel attacked, devalued, and underappreciated.”
It wasn’t immediately clear how the letter was drafted and agreed upon.
In Wyoming, as well as every state in the nation, local elected bodies are prohibited from making decisions except during public meetings; it’s one of the key tenets of government transparency in the United States.
But that didn’t happen here. The issue, the legislation, and the letter were never debated in an open meeting.
Documents obtained by the Lander Journal lift the curtain and show how FCSD#1 leaders skirted the Open Meetings Act, with board chair Jared Kail expressing an unwillingness to debate the legislation in public because he felt the board would not all agree on the education bills, and a public discussion could lead to negative headlines.
“While disagreement is a natural part of governance, we should be mindful about when and how we engage in public deliberations, particularly on high-profile issues where we have limited influence,” he wrote.
In a series of emails, board members debated the merits of calling a meeting to discuss the matter and drafted and edited two versions of the letter to staff.
Courts have held that similar electronic deliberations constitute illegal electronic meetings that cut out the public from public business.
This week is Sunshine Week, a national holiday during which government transparency laws are celebrated. And, it’s a week to cast a spotlight on instances in which elected leaders fail to conduct public business in the light of day.
Their emails
On the evening of January 28, a Lander teacher emailed the FCSD #1 School Board, concerned about some of the legislation regarding education down in Cheyenne. The next day, another teacher reached out, sharing similar concerns.
Would Lander, like Thermopolis, Riverton, and many other school districts around the state, be releasing statements on these bills, they wondered?
New school board member Mara Gans emailed Kail and Superintendent Mike Harris, asking about calling a meeting to discuss issuing a statement.
“I am very hesitant to schedule another meeting this month in reaction to proposed changes in the legislature,” Kail replied, copying every school board member.
He laid out five reasons: The school board already had an extra meeting scheduled that month; administrators are required to attend in-town meetings, and this would be an extra time commitment for them; the board would likely not agree about the bills, and that could lead to negative headlines; that “holding this meeting could reinforce the perception that our board is divided”; and that he lacked the context and information to weigh in publicly.
“Your comments about time commitments and meetings are thoughtful and accurate, but public education and local control are both taking a beating down in Cheyenne,” board member Aileen Brew responded. “Our certified teachers need to know that we value their expertise.”
“I would not be willing to sign a letter, nor vote for the board to sign a letter, opposing HB100 at this time,” Kail said.
Harris chimed in, advocating for some kind of message from the board to staff.
“Unfortunately, many of our staff members assume the worst when they don’t hear any encouraging words from their school board … Don’t shoot the messenger :)”
Board member Taylor Jacobs, who also serves on the Wyoming State School Board, replied to Harris and all of the school board members, suggesting a written statement emphasizing that the board supports and values its staff and their expertise.
This was quickly agreed on as the best course of action.
Jensen and Kail each independently drafted a letter, for which Gans offered a few edits. Later in the email debate, it became clear that Kail’s points about disagreement among the board were not theoretical.
He, at least, supported some of the bills in question, while staff were asking for public opposition.
“Oof,” Gans wrote to Brew and fellow board member Karen Harms.
‘Cop out’ or ‘exactly what [they] need to hear’?
Throughout the email exchange, the majority of participating board members replied to all of the other board members.
Harms and Mike McConnell, while copied on the thread of emails throughout, did not reply or otherwise actively participate in the email exchange.
Gans, who at that point was still undergoing transparency training for new school board members, made a point of replying to no more than two other school board members at a time – avoiding a quorum, or voting majority. She also advocated for there to be a public meeting.
“To clarify, this will be a direct email to teachers and not a community-wide, public statement?” Brew asked once the letter had been drafted. “I will sign it, regardless, but I think it’s a cop out. Our teachers deserve better.”
Kail fired back.
“A cop out? Is that because it doesn’t say what you want it to say, or isn’t specific enough?” he challenged. “I’m happy to put together a letter that explains why the board believes HB100 might actually be a net benefit to our kids, our district, our staff and public education. I assume that would be a letter you’d be ready to sign so it is less of a cop out?”
“I think this is exactly what our teachers and community need to hear!” Jacobs wrote, sidestepping the exchange by replying to something higher up in the thread.
Not every board member steered clear, however.
Gans emailed Kail directly, with no other board or staff members copied, and doubled down on Brew’s statement.
“I personally think this is a cop out because it shows we don’t have the courage or at least the integrity to discuss these issues in the public eye,” she commented. “We owe it to the public to communicate what we believe and why we believe it. I still gladly will sign the letter, but I also firmly believe that regardless of whether or not we think we will find consensus the public is right to request a stance from us, and it is not our duty to skirt around that request.”
Later, Gans replied to one of the teachers that had reached out initially, summarizing what had happened.
“From my perspective, there are two real issues at hand here: 1. Recognizing the board as an advocacy tool that can help shape legislator votes. 2. Recognizing the board as a leader in the community, whose stance on legislation impacts how supported staff/teachers feel, and acknowledging that the board’s role is to represent (or at least listen to) the community … I am quite disappointed.”
Open Meetings Act
“This act has one purpose: This act is to make sure that governments act to conduct their business in public. And anything we do that shuts the public out … is really a step or action against democracy,” pointed out Evanston City Attorney Mark Harris.
While Harris’ specialty is municipalities, not school districts, he’s in a position to know about open meetings laws in Wyoming.
He recently discovered several Evanston City Council members had similarly made council-related decisions via private emails in violation of the law – and Harris was the attorney for the Wyoming Association of Municipalities the last time Wyoming considered its public records and transparency legislation.
Wyoming’s Open Meetings Act is clear: Government bodies are not to make decisions outside of the public eye.
Part of the job of being an elected official, Harris said, is having the courage to talk about controversial, but important, topics in a public setting.
“All meetings of the governing body of an agency are public meetings, open to the public at all times, except as otherwise provided. No action of a governing body of an agency shall be taken except during a public meeting following notice of the meeting in accordance with this act,” the law reads.
The exceptions are few and narrow, and provide only for discussion, not voting. When they start their terms of office, newly elected officials have to undergo training. While this training deals with a variety of topics, the OMA and its requirements is among those addressed.
“Each situation is different – but the law’s the same,” Harris pointed out.
Transparency?
The word transparency pops up frequently in board discussions as something the district ought to embrace. Several board members interviewed explained that being open in how they conduct the public’s business is an important tenet of holding office.
“Open discussion and decision making allow the public the greatest degree of participation and understanding. In practice, this means that important discussions and decisions take place during our meetings with district stakeholders present,” explained Brew. “Time urgency and pressure to act or respond to different issues can make this challenging, but we need to try, again to the best of our ability, to discuss important topics with our community members present in the room.”
“One, the public has requested it, two, we have a legal obligation to be transparent, and three, I guess it’s my personal ethic,” Gans said of her preference that the board had met in open session and followed the law to discuss the legislation. “We are representatives, we are voted in by the people, and the people have an entitlement to know how we feel about certain things. That is how they get the information to hold us accountable. Essentially, the public is our true supervisor, and they can’t supervise us if they don’t know how we stand on things.”
For his part, Kail declined to answer several pointed questions about the email exchange and his desire to keep board conflict from the public eye, saying the emails spoke for themselves. He said he didn’t feel the email exchange and the decision to issue the letter constituted a real decision, thereby wasn’t a real violation of the law.
Kail was willing to speak generally about government transparency.
“Generally I think it’s important and incumbent upon all elected officials to make sure that they’re transparent in their behaviors as elected officials,” he said. “I support transparency in government.”
Newcastle Journal Publisher Bob Bonnar also helped craft the latest iteration of Wyoming’s transparency laws, and served for a dozen years on the Weston County School District #1 School Board.
He said the decision to hide discussions behind emails and outside of public meetings was the “worst kind of institutional cowardice,” adding, “Boards do a tremendous disservice to the public when they manufacture statements that make it appear everybody is ‘on message’ because it creates the impression that boards can only function when everybody is in absolute agreement. These boards should be demonstrating to their constituents how they can reach consensus through disagreement instead of hiding conflict and misleading the public into believing there is only one way to think about an issue or only one approach to an issue or only one solution to a problem.”
This story was published on March 15, 2025.