The Wyoming Attorney General filed July 17 its appeal to the state supreme court of a district court judge’s preliminary injunction preventing the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) from paying out funds to families who want their children to have education savings accounts (ESAs) through a program that a law enacted earlier this year.
Peter Froelicher, a Laramie County District Court judge, issued the preliminary injunction July 15, blocking the disbursement of funds for the Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act and Education Savings Account program, which was enacted in March. The Steamboat Legacy Scholarship Act awards ESAs of $7,000 per year, beginning in the 2025-26 school year, to eligible Wyoming students.
“With an appeal, we can expect a Supreme Court decision on the injunction,” Megan Degenfelder, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, said in a public statement July 17. “However, the appeals process is still extensive and, unless the injunction is stayed while the appeal proceeds, may cause the program funds to be unavailable for most of the 2025-26 school year.”
Students who will be between ages 5 and 21 on Aug. 1 were able to apply on May 15 for a limited number of ESAs of $7,000 annually, beginning in the 2025-26 school year, for expenses such as private school tuition, curriculum, tutoring, and extracurricular activities.
Under the act, families whose household income is no more than 2.5 times the federal poverty line could qualify for one year of funding for kindergarten readiness instruction for children who will be 4 by Aug. 1. Initial funds were scheduled to be distributed July 1.
However, the Wyoming Education Association (WEA) and nine Wyoming residents with school-aged children sued the state, Degenfelder, and Wyoming State Treasurer Curtis Meier Jr. on June 13, arguing that the program is unconstitutional. Three parents of children who applied to use program funding this fall are intervenors.
According to the court injunction, WEA argued that the act would reduce public school funding because schools with decreased student enrollment receive less funding and that providers that participate in the program can deny admission to students with individualized education plans (IEPs), Section 504 plans, and those who are “non-binary.” WEA also said that public school teachers’ salaries are at stake, and the plaintiffs contend that “there is a presumption of irreparable injury because the constitutional fundamental right of education is involved,” according to the document.
The defendants and intervenors, on the other hand, argue that the plaintiffs haven’t demonstrated that any individual students, parents, or teachers will be harmed.
“Specifically, they assert that the individual Plaintiff students will continue to be educated in public schools and the individual Plaintiff teachers will not individually lose compensation,” the document said. “Defendants and Intervenors further argue that teachers have no right to governmental employment.”
Froelicher wrote that the defendants and intervenors “ignore the well-established doctrine that the fundamental right to an education exists to benefit not just students, but all Wyoming citizens through education of their youth” and the plaintiffs “have demonstrated possible irreparable injury because there is no adequate remedy at law, the injuries are peculiar, and money damages will not remedy the harm.”
The certified providers aren’t part of the lawsuit, and the plaintiffs have no way to authorize the court to order those providers to return the funds, he wrote. In addition, the private schools have “discriminatory admission policies” – and therefore students who have IEPs, Section 504 plans, and “who are nonbinary” won’t have equal access to the program. The legislature must prioritize “the fundamental right to a complete, uniform, adequate, efficient, and equal education,” he wrote.
“Regardless of which fund the Legislature uses to pay for the ESA program, appropriating $30 million for private schooling of Wyoming students is inconsistent with the undisputed doctrine that its paramount priority is to support ‘an opportunity for a complete, proper, quality education’ and any competing priorities that are not of constitutional magnitude are secondary,” he wrote. “The lack of financial resources is not an acceptable reason to fail to provide the best educational system.”
He also wrote that if the act’s goal is to provide school choice for schools that are underperforming, “a narrowly tailored law would require some demonstration by the parent that their child’s public school is failing.”
Degenfelder said in a public statement July 15 that she is “disheartened” by the court’s decision to grant the injunction.
“You have had your lives unnecessarily upended through no fault of your own,” Degenfelder said in the statement. “This constitutional dispute could have been handled in a different way to not cause such harm to you.”
Nearly 4,000 Wyoming families have signed up for the program, and many service providers are “counting on those families,” she said in a public statement June 19.
Degenfelder said that she is collaborating with the Attorney General’s office to determine options to challenge the injunction. She noted that she will keep families informed.
The Partnership for Educational Choice, a joint project of the nonprofit EdChoice and the public interest law firm Institute for Justice, announced in a press release July 16 that it will appeal the injunction order and immediately seek a stay of the order so families can access the program during the appeal process.
“The court’s decision to limit educational opportunity for Wyoming families is contrary to the Wyoming Constitution,” Thomas Fisher, the executive vice president and director of litigation at EdChoice Legal Advocates, said in the release. “We will seek to stay the injunction and appeal it as soon as possible.”
WyoFile reported that WEA President Kim Amen said her organization is confident the law is unconstitutional – which, as she said, was brought up during legislative debates – and wanted to make sure the state didn’t need to take disbursed money back or account for it later.
The post Wyoming appeals district court’s preliminary injunction on education savings accounts law appeared first on CatholicVote org.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Mary Stroka
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://catholicvote.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.