CHEYENNE U.S. Deputy Secretary of Education Mitchell Zais paid a visit to one of Wyomings four charter schools Friday.

While every child is special, every child is different, said Zais, whose tour of Poder Academy Secondary School came ahead of National School Choice Week. Since 2011, school choice week has celebrated varied K-12 education options including online education, magnet schools, private schools and charter schools like Poder, which are publicly funded, privately operated schools.

The notion of charter schools is still new here. The public is still uncertain as to what charter schools are, and its not as easy as it could be to get an application approved by the school board, said Nick Avila, chief operating officer of Poder. We operate like a small corporation. We have board members, officers and then the principals run the schools.

Avila also agreed with Zais, who championed charter school expansion in his previous role as South Carolinas education chief, that The biggest challenge to more charter schools in Wyoming is the absence of a state authorizer.

While many of the 45 states with charter school laws have a state-level body to review and approve applications, Wyoming leaves that decision up to the public school districts.

When it comes down to charter schools I think its really similar to regular schools. You have some good ones and some not so good ones, Laramie County School District 1 Superintendent Boyd Brown said. I think our state has done a good job of trying to make sure we have quality charter schools that come in.

During the 2018-19 school year, Poder students received some of the highest scores in the district on the Wyoming Test of Proficiency and Progress, also known as WY-TOPP.

Marcos Martinez, the chief executive officer and founder of Poder, said it took about three years for the district to approve the schools application. At the time the school district was not allowing charter schools to come in. What I was told was that a lot of applications were coming in, looking to serve middle- and upper-class students, Martinez said.

Instead, Poder focused on serving students who were falling through the cracks. The schools mission focuses on college preparation, and offers dual enrollment and advanced placement courses. If we thought we could open one more school we would, Martinez said about his visions for the future. But its a very difficult process.

The majority of charter schools operate in urban areas, so Wyomings relatively low population presents another challenge.

Its harder to create a school thats sustainable financially because youre going to be serving relatively fewer students than you would if you were in a more populous area, said Todd Ziebarth, senior vice president of the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Related to that is finding and retaining high quality staff in rural areas.

After his visit to Poder, Zais stopped by St. Marys Catholic School, a private school in Cheyenne which charges tuition. While Wyoming has no school voucher program which 14 other states have passed to allow parents to use public funds for private education Zais said hed come to advocate for a policy that could open the door to changing that. The Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act, would make available $25 million (in scholarships) to the state of Wyoming, he said.

If the federal act, which Wyomings Congresswoman Liz Cheney has co-sponsored, passes, it would be a local decision on how the dollars could be used, Zais said. Apprenticeships, homeschooling and online education are all options, but perhaps the most contentious is the possibility that it could potentially fund private, religious education. Several states, including Wyoming have laws against public financing of parochial instruction, like the kind St. Marys offers.

But rumblings on the national level are signaling efforts to overturn some of those rules.

Earlier this week the U.S. Supreme Court heard a case which centers around the constitutionality of allowing parents to use public money to pay for private religious school tuition, not unlike St. Marys. If you get a scholarship or grant for a college you can take that to a faith-based institution or a secular institution, said Zais, who believes it should operate the same for K-12 students.

Zais said he met with Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon earlier in the day to discuss the legislation, but did not specifically address the possibility of bringing a school voucher program to the state. Cassie Craven, a lobbyist for the libertarian Wyoming Liberty Group, said that the organization wants to see some kind of voucher program happen, and foresees drafting some type of legislation after this years budget-oriented legislative session.

As of now though, the governor, who would have to sign off on any such legislation, hasnt developed a clear, statewide policy position on school vouchers.

Gov. Gordon is supportive of local choice, said Lachelle Brant, education policy adviser for the governors office. Hes also in favor of a parents choice to pick the best education option for their kids.

Kathryn Palmer is the Wyoming Tribune Eagles education reporter. She can be reached at kpalmer@wyomingnews.com or 307-633-3167. Follow her on Twitter at @kathrynbpalmer.

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Opening charter schools in Wyoming is a "difficult process" - Wyoming Tribune