In the coming years, state standards will be undergoing substantial changes, said Jason Sleep, assistant superintendent of teaching and learning, during his annual report to the Park County School District 1 board.

The State Board of Education has decided to trim down education standards following input from stakeholders on Wyoming’s Profile of a Graduate. According to the Wyoming Department of Education’s website Wyoming’s Profile of a Graduate is a SBE initiative that is developed with students, educators, families, community member and employers to determine what students will need to be successful after they graduate.

“As part of their listening sessions, educators repeatedly told the SBE that the standard load was too great to add another big initiative to the plate,” Sleep said in his written report. “With this in mind, the SBE set out to reduce the number of Wyoming state standards in order to provide time for educators to implement the components of the Profile of a Graduate.”

There are 1,821 standards across performance and content categories. Sleep informed the PCSD1 board that the SBE has begun the process of whittling down standards — eventually the state will only have performance standards. According to materials provided by Sleep, 75% of high school math standards have been reduced compared to the number of standards in 2018 and 53.33% of middle school science standards and 59.15% of high school science standards have been reduced compared to the number of standards in 2016.

“We’ve got them trimmed down so that we can have more time to go deeper with kids and to implement graduation standards,” Sleep said.

While the work has started, the approval of these state standards are still a couple years out, said Sleep. He added that the SBE is involving educators in the process, “so I feel like it’s going to come through in a good way for us.”

Once the new standards are approved the district will identify the standards every year that will be tested with common assessments and classify them as the essential standards. Sleep said that this approach is different from some other districts.

When changes are approved it will change the make-up of the Wyoming Test of Proficiency and Progress (WYTOPP).

“So just brace yourself. There's a lot of things that are coming,” Sleep said. “I hope to keep you informed, keep all of our teachers and administrators informed as well, to make sure we're going to be successful. “

Public input is currently being taken on state standards until May 11. The input will then be sent to state committees before going to the state board for final approval.