Joe Gaspari is Wyoming School Board Member of the Year

Joe Gaspari is a quiet man. When he speaks, he says well thought out words to describe his passion for the Carbon County School District No. 2 Board of Trustees (Trustees).

His commitment to the Trustees just earned him Wyoming School Board Member of the Year by the Wyoming Association of School Administrators at the Wyoming State School Boards of Association annual meeting in November. The honor was announced at the December Trustees meeting in Saratoga.

Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD#2) superintendent Darrin Jennings had nominated Gaspari for this award.

Jennings let Gaspari know he had won the award on Monday, November 17. The annual meeting was November 20 - 22, so it only gave Gaspari a few days to come up with an acceptance speech. He was grateful for the time as he said he does not adlib very well. He also didn’t think he was worthy of the award and was very humbled by it.

In 2010, Bob Gates, the superintendent of CCSD#2 at that time, had approached Gaspari about serving on the school board. It was something Gaspari had not thought about, he said. But he decided it was time to give back to the community.

His youngest daughter had graduated two years before and Gaspari had seen a turnover in principals and superintendents before that time. The turnover rate at one point was three principals and three superintendents in four years. To Gaspari, that meant the continuity was not good. He was appointed by the Trustees to finish a two-year term left by a board member who had moved away.

He served two years and decided to run for election. “It takes several years … to figure out what your position is,” Gaspari said. “It is not a managing board, it is a governing board.”

Gaspari said he believed he had something to offer. “Being a nine-member board and people with different backgrounds, we can come up with better decisions with many hands rather than just one.”

“I shared this, when I accepted the award - which is the preamble to the Wyoming State Constitution,” Gaspari said. “We, the people of the State of Wyoming, grateful to God for our civil, political and religious liberties, and desiring to secure them to ourselves and perpetuate them to our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.”

He wanted to pass on to the children the foundation of this country and this state.

He used an example of a resolution that was passed by the board in 2021 to not promote Critical Race Theory (CRT) and similar ideologies and to not purchase curriculum or invite speakers who promote those. They wanted to promote the values and principles that are in the constitution, Gaspari said.

Because of that, the Trustees are currently working on a curriculum for kindergarten through fifth grade, English Language Arts and the curriculum director brought up that resolution information to the Trustee committee that the board would not tolerate any of the CRT in the curriculum itself.

In May, 2023, Gaspari was appointed by Governor Mark Gordon to the Wyoming State School Board Association. This position is a six year appointment and cannot be reappointed.

Gaspari had heard about the position for District #2 which covers Albany County and western Carbon County. He went on and applied. He was appointed by Governor Gordon and then confirmed by the state senate.

Gaspari said that he had to sign a form stating he is a registered republican, because the board has to have a balance of half republican and half democrat.

Gaspari said there are all types of checks and balances to make sure that nothing is “ramrodded through.”

Gaspari said it takes a lot of reading and learning a lot being on the state board, because they have limited authority and they have to “learn to stay in our lane.” The state attorney general helps in guiding them through the process and to stay within their parameters.

“We have a great director, who makes sure we stay within our parameters,” Gaspari said. The state director is Dr. Diana Clapp.

Standards, assessments and accountability are the three categories of rule-making authority for the state board of education. Within that, they are also the State Board of Career and Technical Education.

Gaspari talked about the Pathways Innovative Center in Casper, Wyoming which offers single credit classes in different areas of interest to students who attend Kelly Walsh, Roosevelt, Midwest and Natrona County high schools.

He said gunsmithing is now offered through Eastern Wyoming College, which not only teaches how to clean guns, shoot, but how to rifle a barrel and build a gun. These are possible by the Perkins Grant under K-12. The higher education schools are not under the authority of the state school board, just the classes offered under the Perkins Grant.

These types of courses can lead a person into a career, or help them decide if that career is actually for him or her. “Sometimes we choose what not to do,” Gaspari said.

Western Wyoming Community College offers a lineman school under the Perkins Grant.

Looking back over his 14 years on the local board, Gaspari has seen longevity in the leadership in the schools as well as on the board of Trustees.

Gaspari has also been appointed to the BOCES District #5 board, which consists of 13 school districts in the state which includes special needs students. BOCES stands for Boards of Cooperative Educational Services. “There is a shortage of special education teachers,” Gaspari said. Because of the shortage, the districts find they have to share resources and teachers.

The only residential facility for special needs children in Wyoming is in Wilson.

“It’s an honor, but with that honor also comes the responsibility,” Gaspari said.

His goal this year was to become more knowledgeable about the standards and assessments at the local and state level. “We also have to be accountable to the federal government,” Gaspari said. It has become a recent development that started in the early 1980s.

Gaspari was recently re-elected to serve on the school board, plus he was reappointed to the BOCES 5 board for four more years and he has a four year commitment left on his state board. Those will all end at the same time, Gaspari said.

In closing, Gaspari believes the Trustees are working for the benefit of the whole district and systems are set up for choosing what tools to use in teaching the Language Arts with representatives from all of the school who are deciding what is best for all the children while keeping in mind the different communities involved.