Superintendents want to keep local control

Local control has been a principle of small government proponents for centuries. After all, one of the main grievances colonists had against the British government back in London in the 18th century was the contention that only local governments in America ought to make laws to tax American colonists.

The thought was, Parliament in London was not knowledgeable enough of local conditions, nor were local colonists represented in Parliament, so the further away from the impacted area decisions were made, the less effective, and just, they would be. 

Now, K-12 school superintendents across the state and right here in Park County are raising alarm bells about a proposal in the state Legislature to abandon the block grant formula of K-12 funding — the state doles out the level of funding allotted to each district and generally lets the district divvy up that money as it sees fit — in favor of more regimented funding rules that determine more specifically how the money must be spent. 

In theory, maybe that doesn't sound so bad — the British Parliament didn’t think measly little taxes on stamps or tea sounded too bad either — but the superintendents in Powell and Cody are both very nervous as to how much a switch in funding model could negatively impact their districts. 

At the last school board meeting, Park 1 Superintendent Jay Curtis said it would be catastrophic. Park 6 Superintendent Vernon Orndorff uses the same word and said it could mean the loss of some of the programs the Cody schools have used to stand out amongst districts. 

“If they do categoricals, it will be catastrophic,” Curtis said at the Jan. 13 meeting, noting that his business services manager, Mary Jo Lewis, was struggling with figuring out how a change in model could work with the current Powell programs. “If she can't figure it out, I don't know if anybody on planet earth can figure it out.”

Orndorff said a stricter funding model could lead to cuts in teachers to add positions that, while they may be nice, local leadership has decided aren’t as needed as what’s in place, such as replacing some teachers with tutors or instructional coaches. 

“The key piece to this is local control. If they start moving to categorical, they have removed local control,” he said. “We know our students better than other communities; we know what best serves our students.”

Both Cody and Powell have been amongst the better districts in the state, and lately Park 1 has been amongst the top districts in many categories. 

And, Curtis said, the formulas the Powell schools have in place have been a major part of what has made them so successful, and work so well for local students. 

“Our priorities are not the same in Douglas, Lander, Rawlins,” he said. “That's not the way we have been doing things that have been making our kids successful for decades.”

Now I understand the other side of the argument and once covered a district in another state where the state did take over more oversight of spending and operations after the district exhibited the poor results, such as low test scores and graduation rates, that showed something was going wrong. 

School districts should be held accountable if something is not going right. But if local control is effective, as it clearly is in Park County and many other areas around the state, those high achieving districts should be allowed to continue making the decisions they’ve been making with funding to ensure the best possible outcomes for our students. 

Just as in 1776 the American colonists knew better how to manage themselves than the British Parliament, our leadership in Cheyenne generally legislates us better than the U.S. House and Senate.  And our local boards and school leadership generally know what’s best for our local students.