Steady growth in Cheyenne, Wyo., has prompted Laramie County School District 1 to build another new campus, called Coyote Ridge Elementary, to serve 556 fifth and sixth grade students.
The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle reports that the Laramie district, based in Cheyenne and the state's largest public school system, bought the land in 2014 in anticipation of the need for a new school. Last year, the Wyoming Legislature approved the construction of a $24 million building, which is set to open in August 2022.
When it opens, Coyote Ridge will be one of 12 schools the district has built over the past decade.
The state has used coal-lease bonus cash to pay for school construction and renovation, but that revenue stream is drying up, and legislators are faced with a projected $19.6 million shortfall in the School Capital Construction Account in the next biennium, as well as a $300 million deficit in the School Foundation Program Account.
But because lawmakers already have appropriated the money for Coyote Ridge, the project will move ahead.
Dave Bartlett, assistant superintendent of support operations, says the district is focused on building more fifth and sixth grade school buildings because “every one of our (elementary) school buildings were anywhere from two to four classrooms too small” to accommodate the state’s required classroom sizes for students in grade one through six.
“We were faced with having to put new classrooms on every elementary school in town, or do this K-4 and 5-6 method, where there will be four feeder schools and one 5-6 school,” Bartlett says. “It also guarantees that our younger students are able to walk to school.”
From 2012 to 2019, the student population in the Laramie district rose from 12,813 to 14,011. Although enrollment numbers dipped to 13,575 this school year as a result of Covid-19 displacing some students, district leaders expect those numbers to recover and keep climbing—right along with the city’s population.
