Park County School District 1 Superintendent Jay Curtis said in 16 years at the helm of school districts, he’s never had an employee express a desire to run for office. 

This year, he’s had two. 

Now, with the school board’s approval, Curtis will be working to tweak a policy in place at Campbell County that addresses how it works if an employee — in Gillette’s case just teachers but in Powell it will include all staff — is indeed elected to something like the state Legislature and is gone for 20 or 40 days each year. 

“I'm a little torn, because it's hard for me to think of a teacher being out of the classroom … but I also understand that we are a citizen legislature, and it may be not-overly fair that certain professions are able to have all those offices, and other professions are not because of those restrictions.”

It's unusual but not without precedent for school employees to serve in the Legislature. Rep. Steve Harshman, R-Casper, for instance, has been both a longtime legislator, football coach and high school teacher.

For teachers — both who have expressed interest this year are teachers — the cost to hire a long-term sub will be largely covered by the employee paying back their salary received as a legislator, at this point $150 per day, which Curtis said will be close to covering that expense. 

The employee legislator would still be able to use their daily per diem for meals and lodging. 

One of the teachers who had expressed interest, middle school English teacher Justin Waterworth, took part in the work session discussion Tuesday where the board agreed to Curtis putting together a policy to be voted on next month. 

Waterworth, who lives within House District 25 — also Senate District 19 — said multiple people had approached him and suggested he run for the Legislature, although with at least two candidates already declared in both races, he’s still evaluating whether he’d run for either this cycle. 

First, however, he needs to know that he’d be allowed to run and keep his job. 

“The only thing holding me back is the unknown of, like, what does that mean for my wife and kids? Right?” Waterworth said. “So it's nice that you guys are even entertaining the idea. So I appreciate that.”

Trustee Beau Fulton and all other trustees expressed support for Curtis to move forward with a policy, as opposed to doing what Natrona County does, Curtis said, and manage without a policy, almost as if it was an extended sick day. 

“The math maths,” he said of the pay agreement. “I think it’s a good thing. You could offer a perspective there that I think would be good.”

Curtis said the policy draft he will prepare will still mandate that a teacher provide some regular support for the long term sub to assist students in the transition, even if that’s 15 minutes per day, although he said for teachers in the district he can’t imagine that would be an issue. 

Waterworth said he’d expect to stay as involved as possible if he were to be a legislator in Cheyenne. 

Trustee Ben Borcher signed his approval for a policy.

“You're a citizen and you should be able to behave as one,” he said, adding, “You should be able to exercise that right.”