Wyoming Amici Groups Urge High Court to Consider Pre-K Funding

In an amicus curiae brief filed on Monday in the Wyoming Supreme Court, the Northern Arapaho Tribe and Wyoming Parent Teacher Association urged the Court to reverse a trial court order dismissing a claim for a state-funded, high quality pre-k program. Several Wyoming school districts and the Wyoming Education Association (WEA) had sought funding for a voluntary preschool program as part of the remedy in the on-going school finance case, State v. Campbell. The trial court dismissed the claim prior to trial citing a provision in the Wyoming Constitution directing the legislature to "make such further provision by taxation or otherwise…[for] a thorough and efficient system of public schools…[for] all youth of the state, between the ages of six and twenty-one years."

The amicus brief supports the school districts’ and WEA’s position that the trial court read the constitution too narrowly. They argue that other constitutional provisions relating to education encompass preschool by requiring the legislature to provide an education to "all the children of the state" and to maintain "a complete and uniform" system of public education, with "schools of every needed kind and grade." The appellants also maintain that even if the constitution is interpreted to render the provision of public education before age six discretionary, the State is still constitutionally obligated to ensure all children are prepared to avail themselves of their educational rights once they start school, which necessarily requires a state-funded pre-k program.

The amici groups lay out the extensive research on the educational and long-term benefits of high quality pre-k. Their brief argues that this research, coupled with the Wyoming Supreme Court's standard for a constitutionally appropriate education—one that is "a complete, proper, quality education appropriate for the times" and both "visionary and unsurpassed" and the "best" Wyoming can do—obligate the state to include pre-k funding in the state education system. To further support their argument, the amici organizations detail the extreme economic and other disadvantages endured by some Wyoming children, who would gain significant school readiness skills from high quality preschool. The brief also cites the unavailability of high quality programs to most Wyoming children, regardless of socioeconomic status.

Education Law Center attorneys Ellen Boylan and Dan Goldman represent the amici groups. For more information on the preschool issues in Campbell or other cases, visit our home page, or contact Ellen Boylan, Esq., at eboylan@edlawcenter.org; (973) 624-1815, ext. 18.