‘A kick in the face:’ Campbell County School District chair rebukes 'transparency' bill

GILLETTE —The Campbell County School District Board chairwoman Anne Ochs called Senate File 62 "a kick in the face" Tuesday night, saying it would be an unnecessary burden for school teachers.
The bill would require K-12 public school teachers to list and publicize the classroom materials they use throughout the school year in an attempt at increased transparency. Districts would publish the lists on their websites, sorted by school, grade level and subject.
“Senate File 62 is the one that really just irritates me. If somebody could push my button, that’s the one,” Ochs said at Tuesday night's school board meeting. “I really thought our Legislature would step up and say what an excellent job our teachers have done the last two years keeping our schools open.”
Senate File 62 passed introduction to the Senate in the first week of the legislative budget and was referred to the Senate Education Committee, where it is being reviewed this week.
Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, who sponsored Senate File 62, the “Civic Transparency Act,” along with several other legislators, has said that the bill is aimed at increasing transparency and not specifically related to critical race theory, which is not taught in Wyoming schools but has become a contentious social issue in some states.
Some opposed to the legislation have seen it as more directly related to critical race theory, as well as an added burden on teachers and unnecessary imposition on their duties as educators.
“The thing about Senate File 62 is they are asking each teacher to write down everything they use in the classroom all year long,” Ochs said. “Every website, every film, every person who comes in and speaks, everything. It is going to be a list, I mean, it’s 180 days. Do you know how many resources an elementary teacher uses in a day?
"It’s like a kick in the face," Ochs said. "Those teachers do not have to prove to our state Legislature that what they’re doing is right. They should be supporting us.”
The list could be updated throughout the school year, so long as it is completed and posted in full by July 1 following the end of the school year, the senate file language reads. The list would then stay online for at least one year following the end of the school year it documented.
“I am sorry, but our teachers deserve better than this … it really bothers me that they would do that to our staff and think that instead of spending time with kids and on instruction, that they are going to make a list,” Ochs said. “Each teacher’s list would be 100 pages long and this is a total waste of Wyoming people’s time and money, although they would make it an unfunded mandate I’m sure. But I am really fired up about it."
Ochs said she will begin contacting legislators and voicing concern if the bill continues to make its way through the Legislature.

 
“The only thing I asked from them this year was to tell our teachers how much they respected and support them for the jobs they’ve done and this is a kick in the teeth,” she said. “I am really mad.”
School board member Linda Bricker also expressed concern about the proposed legislation, citing its potential to add to the hiring and retainment challenges of keeping a full roster of teachers in the district.
“It could very possibly cause teachers to say, ‘I’ve had it. I’m going to go find a different career,’” she said. “And we already have a huge shortage.”
 
This story was published on Feb. 24, 2022.