A pair of bills signed into law last week aim to build out a more comprehensive system of literacy education across Wyoming’s public schools.

One mandates evidence-based practices and requires regular screenings for dyslexia, while the other enables the Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) to hire a dedicated literacy professional to oversee statewide compliance.

Gov. Mark Gordon’s signing of both bills on Friday was the latest accomplishment of an ongoing push for improved literacy standards. That push has been spearheaded by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder.

“Wyoming is not going to let a single child fall through the cracks,” Degenfelder said during a public bill signing last week. “We are not going to fall behind when it comes to ensuring that our children can read at grade level.”

The primary bill, Senate File 59, establishes a statewide K-12 program for teaching students to read that is built on “evidence based language and literacy instruction, assessment, intervention and professional development that supports educators, engages families and promotes literacy proficiency for all Wyoming students.”

The bill defines evidence-based strategies as those that conform to the science of reading, a term that will be defined and updated by Degenfelder’s office. Nationwide, it generally means putting academic research into practice in classrooms. SF 59 specifically prohibits the exclusive use of “three-cueing” — a strategy once widely employed to teach reading but which education experts now say is outdated and less effective than other strategies.

It also requires annual dyslexia screeners for students below the third grade, and testing for reading difficulties for all students.

The screeners are used to identify the severity of reading difficulties in order to direct “tiered” support that offers the most intensive interventions to the students most in need, while still providing “evidence based” language instruction to all students.

Each school district must formulate an individualized reading plan “for each student identified as having reading difficulties or at risk for poor reading outcomes.”

Districts must now report to the state annually regarding their literacy-related work. Any district where 60% or more of the students are struggling will be required to implement “summer literacy camps or extended supports, including after school support and tutoring.”

The bill also requires literacy related professional development for teachers and specialists “appropriate to their role and level of responsibility” related to literacy education.

SF 59 was backed by dyslexia advocates and literacy specialists.

Senate File 14, the other literacy bill signed into law Friday, appropriates $120,000 annually for the next two years for a full-time position at WDE “to assist school districts in implementing a reading assessment and intervention program and language and literacy programs.”

Both bills go into effect July 1.

A phased-in minimum wage hike in Los Angeles that will mandate up to $30 per hour for hotel workers, signed into law by mayor Karen Bass, is already causing problems for the hotel industry and putting the squeeze on the working-class demographic that minimum wage laws are purportedly intended to help.

“The bottom line is the city of Los Angeles has forced a wage and benefits package on hotels that is utterly unaffordable at a time when Californians and Americans are laser focused on affordability,” Hotel Association of Los Angeles (HALA) President Dr. Jackie Filla told Fox News Digital in an interview this week. 

HALA recently commissioned a study that found hotels have eliminated or expect to eliminate 6% of positions, roughly 650 jobs, since the Hotel Worker Minimum Wage Ordinance took effect in September 2025.

Mayor Bass signed the ordinance into law May 27, 2025, after it was approved by the Los Angeles City Council. The measure is often referred to as the “Olympic Wage” in reference to the sporting event being held in Los Angeles in 2028 and will raise pay for hotel and LAX airport workers up to $30 per hour by 2028. 

POLITICIANS PUSH JOB-KILLING MINIMUM WAGE HIKES WHILE IGNORING THE DEVASTATING ECONOMIC REALITY

The law has already resulted in a pay increase to $22.50 per hour in July 2025, and will continue to increase incrementally until it hits $30 in July 2028. Filla says she is urging elected officials from the city council to the mayor to make “amendments” to the ordinance to ease the burden on the hospitality industry.

“We are at the very beginning of the series of these increases and hundreds of hotel workers have already lost their jobs,” Filla said. “Even more are seeing their hours reduced. We’ve seen restaurant closures within hotels, parking is already getting more expensive, and improvements and the creation of new buildings altogether are being delayed or canceled. So taken together, these impacts should really sound alarm bells for our local policymakers.”

In many instances, the workers who lose their jobs are working-class or blue-collar individuals and Filla pointed out that many managers and general managers started off as cooks or dishwashers and advanced through executive training programs which now are less available due to financial shortfalls. 

The study put out by HALA found that a significant number of the jobs lost have been labor-intensive positions like food and beverage, housekeeping, and parking.

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The study also found that 62% of hotels expect staff hours to decrease in 2026, with three-quarters anticipating reductions of at least 10%.

The impact extends beyond hotel payrolls to subcontractors operating on hotel properties, according to HALA, and hotels reported that two-thirds of third-party providers plan to raise prices to offset wage increases, and one in five plan to cancel hotel contracts altogether.

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“Unlike typical layoffs that are occurring in other industries right now, these job losses, and it is 6% of jobs lost in a short period of time, were entirely policy-driven, caused by the mayor and city council,” Filla said. “And what is especially troubling about this is it didn’t have to happen. Hotels actually want to maintain and grow their workforce heading into these major events, but these dramatic cost increases. Just make that impossible.“

Fox News Digital reached out to Bass’s office for comment.