CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) - The Wyoming Department of Education is seeking volunteers to serve on a committee that will help to develop new guidelines for science education in public schools.
The Wyoming Legislature and Gov. Matt Mead this year banned benchmarks known as the Next Generation Science Standards due to their stance on global climate change. A committee of about 30 teachers and administrators had unanimously endorsed the standards.
Now, the state Board of Education has voted to reconvene the committee and revisit science standards for Wyoming. The department is seeking more volunteers to serve on the committee, state education standards supervisor Laurie Hernandez tells the Casper Star-Tribune (https://bit.ly/1gASyqy ).
The committee will retain 18 of its original members and the department has accepted 12 new volunteers: five parents, three business members, three community members and one elementary school teacher.
“We didn’t want anybody to come back and say, ’It’s all the old people, so it’s all going to go the same direction,’” Hernandez said.
Committee membership will be capped at 45.
The initial committee was made up almost exclusively of teachers and administrators. One parent served on the committee.
“It was not intended to be exclusive in any way,” she said. “We just didn’t have very much participation when we sent out a press release previously.”
The department hopes to increase the amount of community participation in the new review process, Hernandez said.
Members of the group Wyoming Citizens Opposing the Common Core recently volunteered to help review the standards. Hernandez said she could not verify whether they would be accepted onto the committee.
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Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, https://www.trib.com
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