CJ Day
Staff Writer
A Wyoming Legislature bill that would require Wyoming school districts to adopt security policies passed the Senate last Wednesday, and will go before the House later this month.
The bill, known as SF079, mandates school districts must implement some sort of safety policy to protect their students against threats. Advocates of the bill said action is necessary to prevent tragedies, while opponents of the bill chafe at the idea of the state government forcing school districts to make plans.
“Our youngsters are at risk, and our society is more prone to violence and mayhem,” said Ray Reutzel, the dean of the College of Education. “It’s the hottest issue in the country, and the danger is increasing.”
Recent tragedies like the Stoneman Douglas shooting have convinced many in the education community that readiness in the face of a threat is important. School districts have pursued a number of different strategies to prepare for the worst, like active shooter drills and heightened perimeter security during school hours.
Some schools, like Star Valley High School, have implemented many policies to combat the threat. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting, Star Valley started conducting active shooter drills and locking the school’s doors during the day, and worked with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s department to station an armed officer at the school.
Other schools are less worried about threats. Rural schools may not have the staff or resources to properly implement strategies that other schools have no problem with, and others have such a large student body that some plans might be inefficient. However, Reutzel said he felt there is room to find common ground.
“We like to believe that we’re unique, but our needs are more similar than dissimilar,” he said. “Wyoming is very homogenous, our types of situations are not all that different.”
In Colorado, for instance, there is a clear difference in operation between impoverished urban schools and high-earning rural schools. In Wyoming, however, there is not as much difference between schools, as the difference in population is not as large. The largest school district in the state, Laramie County School District #1, had less than 15,000 students the last time it calculated its enrollment records. Compare that to Colorado’s largest school district, which has 91,000 students enrolled as of 2020 according to state data.
Still, the state’s efforts to reform have been stymied by the bottom-up structure of America’s education system, which prizes the independence of individual school districts above all, Reutzel said.
“In America, there’s a strong inclination towards local control, that puts us at a great disadvantage compared to our peers,” he said. “It’s an anachronistic system, one that we’ve neglected to find the political will to change despite the evidence.”
While the current bill does mandate schools to implement some kind of plan, it does not contain any guidance as to what that plan should be. Schools would still be free to implement whatever strategies they felt best fit their situation, the only change would be they must explain their plan in writing and get their school board to approve it.
“It’s more about optics than reality,” said Reutzel. “There’s always a risk. We can put up a chain-link fence surrounding our playground, and someone with wire cutters can put a hole in it.”
Public schools in Wyoming will never be completely safe, he said.
Instead, much of school security is providing the illusion of safety while the administration does what it needs to so the school would not be held liable in the case of an emergency. At the University of Wyoming Lab School, which Reutzel helps to administrate, they have tried to protect their students as best as they can, but the nature of the school makes it hard to properly secure.
“We can’t really secure the building, because we’ve got to keep it open for college students,” said Reutzel. “Even if we could secure all the rooms inside, then the kids walk across the street to the playground, and that’s right in the middle of campus. People [are] always walking by.”
Moving forward, Reutzel said, this bill provides a measure of safety to Wyoming’s schools, but in the future, a broad approach will be necessary if the state wants to prevent a tragedy.
In case of danger, concerned students and community members can send anonymous tips via text messages to the University of Wyoming Police by texting the keyword UWYO and their message to 847411 (Tip411). The Laramie Police Department can be sent tips by calling 721-2526.
