'A Slap In The Face'

“The thought of just saying that you can hire anyone without certification, to me, is a disservice to our kids.”

Carbon County School District No. 2 (CCSD2) Superintendent Darrin Jennings is just one of a number of administrators and educators concerned with legislation which would allow “uncertified personnel” to be hired as teachers in school districts and charter schools. House Bill 100 is sponsored by Representative Ocean Andrew (R - Laramie) and would give schools the ability to bypass the Wyoming Professional Teaching Standards Board (PTSB) when hiring personnel as long as they are able to pass a background check. Andrew has sponsored a number of education-related bills this session.

“I think it’s an attempt to try to expand the pool of qualified people, but I think the way that it’s worded, it would be a terrible setback for our state,” said Carbon County School District No. 1 (CCSD1) Superintendent MIke Hamel.

Value in Certification

While the intent of House Bill 100 appears to be to help alleviate a long-running teacher shortage in the Cowboy State, both Jennings and Hamel believe the legislation fails to do so in a way which protects the value and quality of education.

“Our number one constituents are our kids and it’s a disservice to them. There has to be a governing body that says ‘These people are qualified to teach’ or not,” said Jennings. “That’s what PTSB does and that’s what the certification is meant to do, it's meant to say who can be a teacher and who can’t.”

Currently, the Wyoming PTSB provides paths to certification to individuals who don’t have a teaching degree along with those who do in the form of continuing education. A license from the PTSB is valid for five years and requires a certain amount of credit hours.

“In order to renew my license every five years, the Wyoming PTSB requires five semester hours of course credits or 70 hours of other credit approved by PTSB,” said Lesley McLinksey, an English teacher at Encampment K-12 School. “This could be official trainings through the Wyoming Department of Education or other professional development opportunities such as in-district trainings. For myself, in the last four years, I have earned seven credit hours through in-district trainings, I have completed 500 hours of training through an SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) program and I am 27 credits into a masters program.”

McLinskey has taught for 22 years, all of them in Encampment, after spending four years pursuing an undergraduate degree where she double-majored in English and Secondary Education.

According to Hamel, there is a value to pre-service teacher and administration programs through the Wyoming PTSB. The superintendent—whose district includes schools in Rawlins, Sinclair and the Little Snake River Valley—pointed to Wyoming’s National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores. Also known as the Nation’s Report Card, NAEP tests fourth grade and eighth grade students on their understanding of reading, writing, science and mathematics.

“Our scores across the state on the NAEP assessment—when you compare Wyoming to other states across the country—we’re in the top five nationally for over the past decade,” said Hamel.

Indeed, as of 2022—the latest report issued by NAEP—Wyoming students tested higher in reading and mathematics than students in 45 other states.

Jennings agreed with Hamel that Wyoming PTSB brings value to the state’s education system.

“I think the [Wyoming] Professional Teaching Standards Board has done a good job helping us through our teacher shortage. If we have people who are unlicensed, there’s still a process they have to go through. A little bit like riding a bike,” said Jennings. “They’ll put training wheels on you as a teacher, they put certain expectations in place, certain expectations towards classes you have to take and things you have to do in a certain time frame in order to become certified.”

Paths to Certification

“Today, there’s so many different paths to certification that the standards board has created, I really think this is a slap in the face to the work that they’ve done to help teachers and, ultimately, help kids in our state,” said Jennings.

Indeed, one such path for certification through the Wyoming PTSB is the Professional Industry Career—or PIC—permit. According to Hamel, this permit allows someone with a degree or experience in a certain field to teach.

“Maybe someone that had been a doctor wanted to teach biology at the high school level. There’s a way for that person to get a PIC permit,” said Hamel. “So we already have alternative certificate routes and we have ways for those people to develop their classroom pedagogy skills through the process of further developing their license from one renewal period to the next.”

Another path to certification, said Hamel, is the exception authorization permit. According to the Wyoming PTSB website, this permit is issued to someone who has not yet met all the requirements for full licensure. The permit is valid for one year and allows the person to teach while obtaining the requirements to be fully licensed in Wyoming.

This would be devastating

According to a fiscal note from the Legislative Services Office, the fiscal impact of House Bill 100 is “indeterminable, but could be significant.” The note added that the PTSB calculated a “potentially significant revenue decrease” in the form of application fees for certificates and permits, which fund the PTSB. As of December 2024, according to the fiscal note, there were a total of 23,936 active certifications and permits and approximately 5,300 are received annually with an average of $725,000 collected each year in fees.

The Wyoming Education Association (WEA) represents educators in public schools, colleges and the University of Wyoming and “adamantly opposes this bill.”

“This legislation would be devastating for our students, our communities and our economy. Research shows the numerous benefits of having a highly qualified educator in the classroom, so allowing 18-year-olds with absolutely no training would lead to a host of negative issues for students and schools,” said WEA President Kim Amen. “Wyoming’s students deserve highly qualified teachers, ones who are trained and experienced in the science of learning.”

Hamel expressed similar sentiments, saying that just because someone may understand how to perform math operations doesn’t mean they are qualified to teach math.

“Just because somebody understands how to write a quality English paper doesn’t mean that they would be a quality English teacher,” said Hamel. “Just because someone understands how to read doesn’t mean that they understand how to teach young people how to read.”

While there’s also the potential financial impact of House Bill 100—either short term for the PTSB or long term for Wyoming communities—there’s also the perception of current public educators.

“I have heard from some of my staff that the work they went through to become certified was a priority to have good people working with our kids,” said Jennings. “This is absolutely a slap in the face to them to say we’re going to hire anyone, basically, if they have a heartbeat to be in our classrooms.”

Short term solution, long term impact

Administrators, teachers and the WEA all agreed there needed to be solutions to teacher recruitment and retention in Wyoming but that House Bill 100 fell short.

“Uncertified teachers may provide temporary relief during a staffing crisis; however, relying on them long term compromises educational quality and equity,” said LeAnn Uhling, who retired from Saratoga Elementary School after 32 years of teaching, 29 of them in Wyoming. “Uncertified teachers lack the pedagogical skills and classroom management training necessary for effective teaching. Certified teachers undergo extensive training in lesson planning, classroom management and instructional strategies. Certification ensures that all teachers meet a minimum standard of knowledge and competency. Allowing uncertified teachers could lower the overall quality of education.”

According to Hamel, while there was certainly a need to address Wyoming’s teaching shortage, it needs to be done in a way which protects “the value of the quality of education that we provide to our kids.” Amen shared similar thoughts.

“The answer to solving the teacher recruitment and retention problem does not lie in hiring 18-year-olds to be teachers and administrators. This is an attempt to avoid making the investment in our state’s professional educators and in public education,” said Amen. “Teachers do this work because they love the job; by devaluing the profession, the legislature is making a strong statement about how they view educators and our public schools.”

According to a study presented in September 2024 to the Joint Appropriations Committee and Joint Education Committee (Current Status of Cost Pressures on Teacher Salaries in Wyoming), teaching salaries have “consistently eroded” over the past 10 years compared to similar occupations with sharp declines in the past two to three years. Additionally, while teaching salaries had increased by three percent from the 2023 school year to the 2024 school year it was slower than wages in neighboring states.

Demoralized and Undervalued

Uhling believes legislation like House Bill 100 would not only be unhelpful to the teaching shortage in Wyoming—the same study reported a “significant drop” in the number of graduates from the University of Wyoming—but would exacerbate it.

“Certified teachers may feel demoralized or undervalued if districts prioritize quick hires over highly trained professionals. Also, uncertified teachers often lack a long-term commitment to education, leading to higher attrition rates,” said Uhling. “Frequent uncertified teacher turnover due to challenging working conditions and low pay disrupts students’ learning and creates instability in schools.”

According to Amen, removing highly qualified teachers from public schools would cause the communities surrounding those schools to suffer.

“When our public schools thrive, so do the surrounding neighborhoods and businesses,” said Amen. “Highly qualified teachers are an integral part of our public schools, and when you remove them from the system, our schools, surrounding neighborhoods and businesses will suffer.”

Are There Any Pros?

While there are a number of cons regarding House Bill 100, it seems there are very few pros.

“Quite frankly, I can’t see any pros,” said Hamel.

Jennings, however, found at least one pro to the legislation.

“The only pro is that it lets the decision be up to local school districts and local charter schools,” said Jennings.

According to Uhling, there could be benefits to community members helping in the classroom alongside certified teaching staff.

“I do believe certified teachers benefit from strong relationships with support staff and community partnerships,” said Uhling. “People with real world experience and expertise may enrich instruction with practical applications, innovative approaches and fresh perspectives to help engage students.”

House Bill 100 was introduced on January 2, but has not yet been assigned to a committee.