(Riverton, WY) – The Fremont County School District #25 Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday night to move forward with a K-5 building reconfiguration with a two-phase process, which will begin this fall and be completed at the start of the 2025-2026 school year.
At the end of the reconfiguration, Ashgrove and Jackson will no longer be elementary schools. Ashgrove will be vacated and possibly sold – a potential buyer has already surfaced – and Jackson will house the district’s at-risk programming, such as Frontier Academy, Step Up, Spur, etc…
This leaves Rendezvous, Aspen, and Willow Creek to house K-5 students in each building at the end of the two-phase process. There will also be boost, daycare, and pre-k in some of the buildings. There will also be a spare 350 seats for growth.
Configuring as K-5 schools will increase parent engagement (volunteering), simplifies logistics for the parent (children all at the same school), and removes transitions (which can be disruptive to the student). It is also easier to monitor student learning and growth and more educational opportunities between grades. Things like art, music and PE won’t need to be shared. There will also be more equitable budgets between buildings.
With the TAC (Tonkin) and Ashgrove reduction, they will have reduced excess square footage by approximately 50 percent.
The district is not planning on reducing staff, but through a few years of attrition (retirements, resignations, etc.), the cost savings from vacating Ashgrove is estimated at $363,718.06, with an additional $49,000 to $50,000 in utility savings. Vacating Jackson as an elementary school will save an estimated $362,467.29.
“We’re not planning to reduce staff,” Superintendent Jodi Ibach reiterated about the above budget implications. “… this is through attrition. It won’t be immediate (cost savings).”
Some more immediate cost savings they could see in year two comes from moving Frontier into Jackson. Not only is Frontier bursting at the seams, but they are currently partnering with Central Wyoming College to use their Health and Wellness space for their PE class, which is over $4,000 a year.
“Having them have access to a gymnasium like Jackson’s would be beneficial in that way,” Ibach said.
Though the Board voted to move forward with the reconfiguration, it’s still not official. The Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) and School Facilities Commission need to put their stamps of approval on it.
The WDE approval process could take up to 60 days for the Superintendent of Public Instruction to review it, and they will have to wait until the School Facilities Commission’s May meeting to get it on their agenda for approval.
For updates on the reconfiguration, click here.
Editor’s Note: Boost, pre-k and daycare were originally left out of the story, but have since been added.