 - With no students enrolled at Jeffrey City Elementary for several years, Fremont County School District 1 board members held a discussion this month about whether to place the remote school into official “mothball” status.){kind=link}
(Lander, WY) – With no students enrolled at Jeffrey City Elementary for several years, Fremont County School District 1 board members held a discussion this month about whether to place the remote school into official “mothball” status.
The designation refers to “any district building or facility which is closed and not operational, has the potential to be re-opened, is not being replaced under a district’s facility plan approved by the Commission, is not determined surplus within the district’s facility plan, and is maintained in good condition, for a maximum of three years without additional approval from the Commission,” according to Wyoming School Facilities Commission Rules.
“It actually means basically putting a school on hold without closing it,” Superintendent Mike Harris said during a Lander School Board meeting last week. “It can be taken back into active status if it needs to, but this just gives a designation that shows that yes, we … are not expecting to have students (there).”
The change would give administrators greater “peace of mind,” Harris said, explaining that, currently, area residents could choose to enroll at the school any time, requiring the district to quickly arrange for transportation, staffing, and food services for the facility.
“That creates a big set of issues for the administrators to figure out,” Harris said. “All of those changes at the last minute get very complicated.”
If the school is mothballed, however, Harris said students can’t enroll there, so “we can have answers to those questions before they come up.”
“I just think from an administrative standpoint, it’s a lot easier to understand what you’re working with when the school year’s on the horizon,” he said.
Plus, Harris added, the School Facilities Commission “would like to see us do something with that building.”
“We have several years of data now that show that there (aren’t) students,” he said. “Not that there won’t ever be students, but this gives us a way to firm up the status of the school.”
Another alternative would be to sell the Jeffrey City property, Business Manager Travis Sweeney said, but Harris pointed out that, if the district mothballs the school instead, the facility could potentially be re-opened to accommodate any future “influx of enrollment” in FCSD 1.
“This just helps us make sure that there’s a facility there,” Harris said, recalling that, when the district visited the community last year, some families said they would consider enrolling their young children at Jeffrey City Elementary in the future.
With that community feedback in mind, several trustees wondered whether the board should hold off on mothballing the school until administrators have a clearer picture of enrollment numbers for 2026-2027.
Trustees also suggested setting an earlier enrollment deadline for Jeffrey City Elementary in order to give the district more time to organize staffing, transportation, and other services if families choose to send students there in the future.
At the end of the discussion, Board Chair Jared Kail asked Harris and his team to prepare a proposal indicating when local families would need to inform the district that they would like to enroll at Jeffrey City next year.
If no one expresses interest by that date, Kail said the board could consider mothballing the school for the coming school year.
The district can still spend major maintenance money on upkeep at the facility if it is mothballed, Sweeney said, and the School Facilities Commission rules say mothball status can be renewed with Commission approval after the initial three years.
For more information, call FCSD 1 at (307) 332-4711.