• Parental empowerment and technical career preparation are at the top of the list.

Midway through her current term, Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, Megan Degenfelder, remains focused on following through with her campaign promises and honoring voter requests by structuring the Wyoming Department of Education’s Strategic Plan to more effectively meet the needs of Wyoming’s students and families.

“This plan has been all about parental rights, job preparation for students, patriotism in schools, efficiency, literacy, and valuing our teachers,” Degenfelder said, in an interview on the SVI Radio Network last week. Leading Wyoming’s educational system into a period of what she calls “historic movement and partnership with the legislative branch,” the Superintendent is working to empower parents, eliminate political bias and educate Wyoming’s children in more effective and efficient ways.

Degenfelder’s office has worked to create a transparency initiative of curriculum, allowing for more diversified schooling choices, which includes “historical legislation that we have passed that now provides for State authorized Charter Schools as well as kicking off an education savings account voucher program.”

“I’m so excited for the movement in Alpine. That Community has gone far too long without a school and so this is a great mechanism to do that. I lend my support to the charter board and will continue to do that, so I was very excited to see that approved and on its way.”

Policies are being established to protect students from “inappropriate library books” and to ensure that parents have full access to their students’ health records.

Another innovative concept within the strategic plan is focused on more thoroughly preparing students for jobs through increased Career and Technical Education. “We are taking education and flipping it on its head.” Degenfelder is advocating for all students by working to create an academic plan that allows for variation in learning styles and strengths.

“This is all about creating more student-centered learning, more competency-based learning, where students move at their own pace within their same cohort of students. We’re piloting project-based and work-based learning where students are actually getting out of the classroom and working in the real world space and still meeting those standards that then apply towards their graduation. Career and Technical Education is really,  really important to me and something I’m passionate about, so it’s a really exciting time in terms of shifting how we educate.”

Degenfelder’s office is working to design a plan that would allow for graduation credit to be earned through student employment opportunities or extracurricular activities, offering students faster and more targeted completion of their high school experience. This is “Competency-based Learning where students are moving at their own pace.”

In reference to the Career and Technical Education Pathways already in place within the local district’s middle and high school curricula, Degenfelder said that LCSD No. 2 is doing “really incredible things and has got some great resources and facilities for Career and Technical Education. We have these great pockets of excellence around the state. How do we now streamline that” and make it available in every district throughout the state  “so that every kid has access to that?”

Consequently, the WDE is constructing what they call an “Innovators Network” of experts who are tasked with designing a program that works in the schools to ensure that “every student has access to that work based non-traditional type of learning.”

Degenfelder acknowledged that the quest for higher quality education begins with valued and supported teachers. “When I was on the campaign trail meeting with districts, one of their top concerns was the teacher shortage.” Immediately after taking office, her team launched a teacher retention and recruitment task force that reached out to teachers to poll their concerns.

After surveying teachers, the task force has found that educators are concerned about appropriate compensation, receiving support from leadership, and facing behavioral issues with students.

The task force is launching a Leadership Academy that is designed to give administrators the tools they need to more fully support teachers. “We also have reduced our state standards by about 69% so far in Math and Science,” to lift a weight from teachers. “There’s just too much on their plate and not enough school days to do it.”

“I think it’s something that we absolutely have to keep working on,” she added.  “Talking about the great things that our teachers are doing and really recognizing that profession as a core one to our community.”

Additionally, as America prepares to celebrate her 250th Birthday, Degenfelder is also hoping to restore devoted patriotism in the classroom.

“Our future is bright in Wyoming, Degenfelder concluded. “We have the potential, if we’re willing, to be bold, innovative leaders, to really take education in the state to the next level.”

For more details about the WDE Strategic Plan, please visit edu.wyoming.gov.