When it was time to enroll her daughter in kindergarten, Laramie mom Amanda Busick chose the K-8 Laboratory School — a 130-plus-year-old institution traditionally used to help train university students preparing to teach. Allures included the school’s experiential programming and its location on the University of Wyoming campus, where she worked.  Her daughter has been a student there since; she’s now in seventh grade. They couldn’t be happier with her education.  “The opportunities that [students] have had to apply the academics in such a variety of ways — you can’t get that in the main school system,” Busick said. “She’s just had such an amazing learning opportunity that really made her a well-rounded kid so far.” When her family heard last summer that the Lab School’s future was in jeopardy, their lives were thrown into uncertainty, she said. The process that followed — which resulted in the decision to close the school in its current location at the end of the 2024-25 school year — has been confusing, stressful and challenging, Busick and other parents say. University and district employees have tussled over who’s to blame instead of putting the students’ interests at the forefront, they maintain.  Concerned residents have been clanging the alarm bells — and Albany County state lawmakers took notice. The county’s delegation of six representatives and senators penned a letter to state education leaders expressing their “profound concern and firm opposition” to the closure decision, and the Legislature’s Joint Education Committee spent more than two hours discussing the issue Thursday. At the end of that discussion, Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) vowed to work to keep the one-of-a-kind school alive. “I hope that I can get the support of this committee in potentially trying to bring solutions for this,” Provenza said. “It’s no small feat to get an entire Albany County delegation on a letter together to support something. So I hope that we can see support in trying to solve problems together in the next legislative session.”  Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie) talks on the House floor in 2024. (Ashton J. Hacke/WyoFile) Albany County School District officials, however, asked the committee to leave the issue in the realm of local control. State intervention could set a bad precedent, they said.  “While we appreciate the attempts by many to find a solution to this issue, our locally elected board has already started the process of resolving this, and we ask that we be allowed to do so outside of legislative mandates or oversight,” ACSD1 School Board Chair Beth Bear said. The board is in the midst of community discussions about the future of the school.  The issue brings up questions of the state’s role in local education and what constitutes a situation so exceptional that lawmakers should meddle. Lab School supporters argue its unique role as a teaching laboratory and its century-plus of education history make it a place worth saving — even if that means it’s not ultimately part of the school district.  “We need a school that provides an opportunity like the Lab School does,” Busick said. She doesn’t expect a solution to instantly materialize, she said, but hopes leaders will find some way to salvage the school.  “My hope is that the university would reconsider and maybe embrace something there,” she said.  One year only  Most Wyoming schools operate in buildings owned by their districts, not other entities. The Lab School’s peculiar arrangement is a product of its history.  The school was established in 1887 — three years before statehood — as the Preparatory School to serve secondary education students from counties without access to high school. In 1913, it transitioned to the Training Preparatory School, used as a learning laboratory by UW’s College of Education.  In 1999, the private school partnered with Albany County School District to become a district public school. The Lab School operates as a “school of choice” in ACSD1, meaning any district family can enter a lottery to enroll their kids, regardless of where they live.  The school now operates in a roughly 75-year-old building on campus. UW students still train in its classrooms, but they now also train in classrooms across the district and beyond. The number of Lab School student teachers plummeted from 18 in ‘21-22 to just one this school year.  Students of the Lab School, a K-8 school housed in a University of Wyoming building, have access to UW resources like this library. (Katie Klingsporn/WyoFile) Though the arrangement has benefitted students with access to university facilities, and benefitted the university with its nearby training classrooms, it’s unconventional for a public school to exist in a college-owned building. UW and the district have historically signed a memorandum of understanding to guide the tenancy. But efforts begun in 2023 to again extend that arrangement failed to produce an agreement.  Instead, the university announced this summer it was pursuing an extension only for the 2024-’25 school year, meaning the school must find a new home if it wants to continue beyond that. The district requested two years to give it more time to transition, according to ACSD1 officials. UW Trustees voted in support of the one-year agreement extension, however, which appears to cement the university’s decision.  Details surface  Perhaps more than anything, Thursday’s Ed Committee meeting served to provide more clarity around the circumstances leading to what many felt was an abrupt closure announcement with insufficient explanation. Committee members asked school district and university representatives point-blank whether they want the Lab School to continue — forcing them to address speculation that neither desire to keep it going.  School board Chair Bear couldn’t answer, she said, because she is just one of nine board members, and their stance will depend on future discussions. The district has held several listening sessions to hear from families, she said.  “We intend to discuss those listening sessions and possibilities moving forward at our meetings in December,” she told lawmakers. “It is our intent to make a decision regarding the Lab School’s future as soon as possible, for the sake of our students, families and educators.” Circumstances, however, had created difficulty around the Lab School, Albany County School District Superintendent John Goldhardt said. State standards weren’t being taught, he alleged, and cuts and turnover on both sides had eroded the efficacy of the facility as a teaching laboratory.  The Lab School is located in the College of Education building on the University of Wyoming campus. (Katie Klingsporn/WyoFile) “It’s a tough situation, because a lab school can do a lot of good,” he said. “The issue is having all those resources to make it work.” The university’s view on the matter, which UW Trustee Chair Kermit Brown delivered, was straightforward.  “The problem is that that school has just now become another school in the Albany County School District system, it’s not really a laboratory anymore,” Brown said. The district has alternative facilities it could move the Lab School into, Brown continued. Factors like which party pays for maintenance also contributed to the final decision, he said. The Lab School is no longer part of the university’s core mission, according to Brown, who also disputed the notion that the closure decision came out of nowhere.  “It’s been going on for quite some time, and anybody that was paying attention could feel the ground shaking all around them,” Brown said. “So there’s been adequate notice.” Bill Mai, UW’s acting vice president for governmental relations, said breakdowns in negotiations centered mostly around security issues. After some “very concerning” security incidents involving Lab School students, he said, UW insisted on stronger language around protocols, but the district did not get on board. “Continuing failure of ACSD to constructively engage in meaningful negotiations” contributed to the shortened timeline, according to a UW letter. Mai could not discuss those incidents in detail due to privacy concerns. Parent frustration Since the closure was announced, Provenza has fielded many concerns for parents and said Thursday she has heard that a considerable number are pulling their students out of the school due to its uncertain future. “And so while I hear the local control concern, and I’m sympathetic to it, part of my concern is that if we don’t intervene, then where we’re going is just no Lab School, or at least one that’s off campus and looks radically different,” Provenza said. “And to our constituents, that’s not acceptable to them.” Ashley Anderson, the Lab School’s parent president since 2020, has two biological and three stepchildren who have attended the school. The ordeal has created massive levels of anxiety in her household, she said. Anderson doesn’t believe ACSD1 or UW have acted with student interests at heart.  “The kids were not put at the center of what the heck was going on,” she said. “And that was so, so frustrating.” Teachers, alumni and parents who testified Thursday echoed her concerns and praised the school for its benefits both to student teachers and pupils. Many described kids who struggled within other schools but thrived in Lab. Others, however, said the quality faltered in recent years with turnover and leadership changes.  The Lab School in Laramie offers outdoor-based learning opportunities such as farm tours. (Albany County School District 1) Thursday’s discussion revealed that conversations going on behind the scenes were not shared with families when it mattered, mom Sarita Talusani Keller said Monday.   “There’s so much more they could have shared so we could see everything to make decisions,” she said.  Keller and Anderson are both in a holding pattern when it comes to where their children attend school in the future. But they hope the Lab School will endure in the spirit that made it so special.  “The way the Lab School used to work was that it was about research,” Keller said. “Kids were learning to research and write and follow their own ideas and to contribute. Then they’d apply what they’ve learned to actual, real-world situations. We’re setting them up for success, whatever they do, to be critical thinkers.” BEFORE YOU GO… If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to WyoFile. 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