Wyoming Education Association Vs The People of Wyoming
Unfortunately for Wyoming, the DC controlled Wyoming Education Association has imported a dangerous strategy of bypassing Wyoming voters and the legislature through endless lawsuits.
For more than three decades, the Wyoming Education Association (WEA) — the state’s declining teachers union — has pursued a deliberate strategy of filing lawsuit after lawsuit against the State of Wyoming whenever the elected Legislature passes laws or sets funding levels the union dislikes. Rather than accepting the outcomes of democratic elections and legislative debate, the WEA repeatedly turns to the courts to impose its preferred policies on school funding, staffing, facilities, and even programs like Education Savings Accounts. This is not advocacy for students or teachers. It is a sustained effort to override the people’s elected representatives and shift power from voters and lawmakers to unelected judges.
How did we get here?
The Campbell Era: Judicial Remaking of Wyoming Education (1995–2008)
The pattern began with Campbell County School District v. State (1995). The Wyoming Supreme Court ruled that education is a fundamental right and that the state must provide a “complete and uniform” system. The Legislature responded by fundamentally rewriting school finance statutes, creating a statewide cost-based funding model, reducing local wealth disparities, and assuming greater responsibility for defining and funding educational adequacy. The litigation did not stop there. A series of subsequent Campbell decisions through 2008 forced the Legislature to implement “basket of goods” models, recalibration studies, inflation adjustments, expanded transportation and special education funding, statewide facility standards, and more. Each ruling required new statutes and increased state oversight. What began as an effort to address funding disparities evolved into a system where courts effectively directed the expansion of statewide mandates and centralized control.
The 2022 Lawsuit and 2025 Ruling: The Pattern Continues
In August 2022, the WEA (joined by several school districts) sued the state again. It claimed the Legislature had failed to adequately adjust funding for inflation and other costs, rendering the system unconstitutional despite years of rising appropriations. After a lengthy trial, Laramie County District Judge Peter Froelicher ruled in February 2025 that portions of Wyoming’s school funding system were unconstitutional. He ordered the state to modify the funding model and school facilities financing system to comply with judicial standards.
The state has appealed to the Wyoming Supreme Court. While this case was pending, the Legislature passed an Education Savings Account program to give families more choice. In June 2025, the WEA filed suit to block it and quickly obtained a preliminary injunction halting the use of public funds for the program. This is the consistent playbook: If the people’s elected Legislature does not deliver exactly what the WEA demands on funding or policy, the union sues. Courts issue orders. Lawmakers must then rewrite statutes, commission new studies, and appropriate more money.
Declining Enrollment, Rising Spending, Expanding Mandates
Wyoming’s public school enrollment peaked at 94,002 students in 2015 and fell to 88,165 by 2025 — a loss of over 5,800 students. During the same period, per-pupil spending rose sharply from approximately $16,055 in 2015 to $20,521 in 2024 (a nearly 28% increase). According to the Legislative Service Office memorandum dated March 11, 2026 the estimated school funding for 2026-27 school year will equate to about $22,626 per pupil. This totals to approximately $1.95 billion dollars.
Despite fewer students and one of the highest per-pupil spending levels in the country, the WEA insists the system remains underfunded and demands further judicial intervention. Each successful lawsuit produces more reporting requirements, compliance obligations, statewide standards, and oversight from Cheyenne, further eroding the local control that Wyoming communities have long valued.
A Constitutional Mismatch
The Wyoming Constitution clearly assigns responsibility for public education to the elected branches:
- Article 7, Section 1: The Legislature “shall provide for the establishment and maintenance of a complete and uniform system of public instruction.”
- Article 7, Section 9: The Legislature “shall make provision by taxation for a thorough and efficient system of public schools.”
- Article 1, Section 23: The Legislature “shall suitably encourage means and agencies calculated to advance the sciences and liberal arts.”
- Article 7, Section 14: General supervision of public schools “is entrusted to the Superintendent of Public Instruction”.
Nowhere does the Constitution authorize judges to define the precise contents of a “basket of goods,” dictate inflation adjustments, or order specific staffing levels, mental health programs, or facility standards as constitutional mandates. Yet that is exactly what decades of WEA litigation have achieved. What should be legislative policy choices and subject to voter accountability have been converted into judicially enforceable obligations.
Who Benefits? Taxpayers Pay the Price
The disputes center overwhelmingly on funding formulas, compensation models, operational costs, and institutional resources — not individual students in specific classrooms. When the WEA wins, the Legislature responds with new statutes, higher appropriations, and expanded state control. These changes accumulate over time, creating a thicker web of mandates. Every lawsuit carries real costs: legal fees paid by taxpayers on both sides, diverted staff time, and the opportunity cost of money spent on litigation instead of classrooms.
The result is a system increasingly governed by court orders and statewide rules rather than decisions by locally elected school boards and the people’s representatives in Cheyenne. The WEA claims these suits protect students and demand “adequate” funding. In practice, the union has shown it will sue to block legislative choices it opposes (such as school choice programs) and will never declare victory as long as more resources can be extracted through the courts. The cycle is self-perpetuating: more spending is never enough; more lawsuits to follow.
Reclaiming Democratic Control
Wyoming’s Constitution entrusted education policy to the Legislature. For more than thirty years, the WEA has worked to weaken our democracy and transfer effective control to the judiciary through repeated litigation. This undermines the separation of powers and the principle that policy disagreements should be resolved at the ballot box and in the legislative chamber, not in the courtroom. The definition of a constitutionally adequate education, the level of funding, and the structure of school choice should be determined by Wyoming’s elected representatives — not by union lawsuits and district court orders. Voters deserve an education system shaped by democracy, not by the next round of litigation brought on by the WEA and their DC lobbyist overlords.