Tonight, February 24, 2014, the Natrona County School District will hold the second of its public meetings to take comments on the proposed bond issue, which will go to the voters, if passed, later this spring.
As Natrona County residents know, our single school district serves a population of at least 80,000 people and covers 5.376 square miles. To put that in a bit of prospective, the state of Rhode Island covers an expanse of 1,214 square miles. Vermont coveres 9,620 square miles. So, the county is about four times the size of the state of Rhode Island and about 60% of the size of the state of Vermont.
That means the single school district serves children that come to its schools from a huge expanse. The number of rural schools is not as large as it once was, in keeping with the reality that modern school requires modern infrastructure, and for the final stage of public schooling, high school, that is particularly true.
The district has four high schools, Natrona County High School, Kelly Walsh High School, Roosevelt and Midwest. NCHS and KWHS are by the far the largest of the schools. Roosevelt is an alternative school, set up for kids who seek the benefits of its programs, and Midwest is a small community on the edge of the county. Many Natrona County residents probably don't even realize that Midwest has a high school. As can be seen, the concentration of high schools is naturally in Casper, simply because Natrona County, in spite of its vast expanse, really only has six towns within it, a couple of which are no longer really full towns. Actual towns are the greater Casper area (Casper, Bar Nunn, Mills, Evanston), Midwest, Edgerton and Alocva. Towns that once existed, and are sort of still there, include Powder River and Arminto. The overwhelming majority of students attend NCHS or KWHS, which have huge student populations.
KWHS and NCHS are undergoing reconstruction. Built in the 1920s, it is simply time for NCHS. It's a beautiful school, but its facilities are dated. This is also true for KWHS which is not nearly as old, but like a lot of buildings built in later areas seems to have borne the test of time less well.
In Wyoming, school construction is basically funded by the state. Education is legally a "fundamental right" in Wyoming, and all of the state's children have the right to the same basic education. This has come to mean, both philosophically and legally, that the state's mineral resources, as reflected in income to the state, are distributed by the state, so that counties with low mineral production are not deprived of the ability to teach their children to the same standards that those with high incomes are.
This is not universal, however, as the state at some point determined that it would not pay for "enhancements". Naturally, the state was concerned about being asked to pay for high dollar athletic facilities and the like.
But what is, and ins not, an enhancement has turned out to be a tricky deal.
In the proposed bond issue, Natrona County School District No. 1 may be asking for funds that are not, in a real sense, "enhancements". They are necessities. The first of these is upgrades to existing schools for school security, something that cannot be ignored now that we have the ability to do it. We blogged about that in an recent entry here.
Directly related to safety is funding for three swimming pools, one at NCHS, one at KWHS, and one at Midwest High School. In a district that covers a territory as vast as that covered by some Eastern states, the need for this should be self evident. These schools will be lifesavers for some, and will benefit all. We have also blogged about that in this entry and in this one.
Finally, but not least in significance, we here in this area continually are told that our mineral extraction economy produces good jobs for local residents, particularly those who grow up here. At the same time, those of us who have lived here for all or the balance of our lives know that quite often Wyoming's biggest single expert is our young people, whom, in lean times (and we have a lot of those) grow up, graduate from high school, and then leave in search of work, never to return. We also know that the oil and gas industry is expressing a need for skilled employees, which in many instances they end up bringing in from out of state. And, additionally, if we're serious about educating our youth for the 21st Century, we have to admit that shops built in the mid 20th Century, aren't going to effectively serve that need. The Bond would fund construction of a Science and Technology center where students who wished to pursue these talents could. We have blogged about that here.
The bond deserves to pass. The School Bard deserves credit for taking this on. The people of Natrona County should come out to support them.
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