CHEYENNE — Wyoming’s largest school district is considering a library book procurement policy for controversial sexually themed materials that, if passed, would likely be the strictest in the state.

Laramie County School District No. 1 in Cheyenne is discussing a policy that would prevent new books containing “sexually explicit content” of any kind from entering elementary schools and discourage them from being included in junior and high school libraries.

People opposed and supportive of the proposed policy agree it would be the most stringent policy in a state where many school districts are tightening their regulations.

What’s defined as sexually explicit relies on a wide-sweeping definition covering all sexual acts.

In short, if a book contains a sex scene, the district’s librarians would be at least discouraged from buying it.

Since the school district established a new policy for identifying books with sexually explicit content in its circulation last year, there have been 21 titles added to it, almost at the high school level. Any member of the public can nominate books for this disclaimer.

“It’s important, because current policies are not being properly followed and have allowed sexually explicit books into our school libraries, a place with which they do not belong,” said Patricia McCoy, chair of the Cheyenne chapter of Moms For Liberty.

Marcie Kindred, one of the lead organizers of Wyoming Family Alliance for Freedom, is opposed to the proposed policy, which she said amounts to a book ban based on too wide a definition of “sexually explicit.”

“Sexually explicit does not mean without value or merit,” she said. “Sexuality is a part of our life. Teenagers are involved in that with their developmental understanding.”

She said the proposed policy also confirms the suspicions she’s had all along about people wanting to revise the district’s library book policies.

“It confirms they’re trying to keep out books they don’t like personally,” Kindred said.

LCSD1 Board of Trustees Chairman Tim Bolin declined to comment on the proposal as it’s still in its 45-day public comment period.

How It Works

Selection of library materials at the elementary level will be supervised by a district librarian or content area coordinator and cannot contain sexually explicit content.

Selections made at the junior and high school level shall be made by district librarians, who must “endeavor” to select materials, whether free or purchased, that do not contain sexually explicit content.

Materials that meet state and or federal legal definitions for pornography or obscenity will not be included in district library collections.

Kindred said this removes the element of parental choice.

A public records request performed by Cheyenne attorney George Powers shows that 29 of the first 33 nominations were made by a single person, according to an op-ed he wrote for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle.

Kindred also pointed to the fact that during an April school board meeting on this topic, an excerpt was read from a sexually explicit book that is not in circulation in any school library in Wyoming, as proof those fighting for the book policy changes are using “misinformation and sensationalism to scare the public into believing their lies.”

When her daughter was a freshman and sophomore at Cheyenne South High School, McCoy said she checked out books with sexually explicit material and knows other parents who have dealt with similar issues.

When McCoy attempted to read a passage from one aloud at a LCSD1 board meeting, Bolin would not let her.

Check-Out Changes

The new policy on procurement would not apply to books already in the library system.

Last year, the LCSD1 board of trustees approved a new policy that removed the district’s “opt-out” policy and replaced it with an “opt-in” policy for checking out sexually explicit books from its school libraries. This changed the responsibility to the parents to actively decide if they want their children to access sexually explicit books rather than only deciding if they don’t want to access them.

Under that change, parents and guardians have an ability to opt-out their children from being allowed to either check out any books flagged for containing sexually explicit content, allow their children to only check out specific titles containing this content, full access without restrictions, or no access to any books.

Context

In 2023, Park County School District 1 in Powell passed a new book selection and adoption policy for its school district. According to the Powell Tribune, this includes considerations such as supporting standards, user appeal, maturity, favorable reviews from “authoritative sources,” diversity of viewpoints, and representation from religious, ethnic and cultural authors.

In addition to the criteria, the librarians there are supposed to take input from stakeholders in accordance with the district’s mission and values.

The school district also created more options for the removal and restriction of existing books by developing a scoring rubric for a book’s content and the creation of a committee to review removal requests.

Sheridan County School District 1 in Big Horn is also considering new policies for removing library books from its shelves.

In Gillette, the head librarian of the Campbell County Public Library System was fired in 2023 after refusing to move contested books from the juveniles’ sections of the libraries to the adult sections.

McCoy said she is very confident the LCSD1 board will approve the new policy.

“I have faith in our community and many people I have spoken with are in favor of the new procurement policy,” she said. “It is up to us as educators, parents, and community members to protect our children’s innocence and allow them to be children.”

The policy’s review period will be open until 4 p.m. May 23. The board of trustees will decide whether to pass the procurement policy at its June 3 meeting.

Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.

The first full week of May will be a mix of cold, wet, wind and even some snow around Wyoming.

Wyomingites woke up to cold temperatures and precipitation Monday morning, with snow reported in several areas. According to Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day, it’s a perfect storm of spring weather that’s pretty typical for springtime here.

“It’s a classic Wyoming spring,” he said. “Rain, snow, wind, thunder, lightning — all those things are happening right now.”

The first full week of May will be cold, wet and windy in the Cowboy State, but the devil is in the details, and those details will likely bring good news to dry areas still recovering from drought, Day said.

Watches, Warnings And Outlooks

As of Monday morning, the National Weather Service had issued a watch, warning or outlook for almost every region of Wyoming.

Winter Weather Advisories were in effect in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, the Bighorn Mountains and the Wind River and Wyoming ranges. Old Faithful in Yellowstone could receive as much as 6 inches of snow through Wednesday.

A High Wind Warning is in effect for nearly all of southern Wyoming until at least Tuesday evening. Cheyenne, Laramie and Rock Springs could experience winds as high as 65 mph.

Meanwhile, the NWS issued a Hazardous Weather Outlook for most of central Wyoming and the Bighorn Basin, anticipating wind gusts up to 80 mph in those “wind-prone areas.”

Day said Wyomingites can expect Monday’s conditions to persist through the workweek.

“The area of the state that will have the highest impact will be the northern counties, especially the northeast along the Interstate 90 corridor,” he said. “Gillette, Buffalo and communities in the northeast corner are likely to get 1 to 2 inches of rain and wet snow combined. If you add the wet snow to the rain that’s going to fall, we’ll easily see a foot or more in the Bighorns and heavy snowfall in the Black Hills.”

The Bighorn Basin received plenty of rain over the weekend, and more is likely throughout the week. Day said it’ll get drier the farther south one goes, but there could be more wind to contend with.

“As you go farther south, the precipitation is lighter, but the wind is going to be more of a factor,” he said. “The heavier moisture gets down to Casper, Douglas, Lander and Riverton. The I-80 corridor will get wet, but not as much.”

Persistent Fun Through Friday

Wyoming’s smorgasbord of spring weather will undoubtedly create hazardous conditions for drivers on the state’s highways. Day said Wyoming could and should expect to encounter anything and everything on the roads.

“If you’re traveling over the next four to five days, you could experience just about everything from rain to snow to fog to very strong winds,” he said. “The mountain passes are going to be pretty rough with the snow up in the mountains.”

Day’s analysis of current weather patterns suggests there won’t be much relief throughout the week. Wyoming will most likely stay wet and windy through Friday.

“The worst of the weather will continue through Friday,” he said. “Then we’ll start to see moderating temperatures this weekend.”

The Colder, The Better?

Many Wyomingites might find cold precipitation raining on their springtime parades. But Day said even a warm spring shower is historically too much to hope for in the Cowboy State.

“You don’t get warm rain in Wyoming in May,” he said. “It just doesn’t happen.”

If there’s a silver lining in this week’s weather, it’s that it will bring much-needed moisture to the northeast corner of Wyoming. Even with numerous spring snowstorms and rain showers, northeast Wyoming stayed mostly dry, while its winter snowpack was depleted to a fraction of its 30-year average.

Day explained that getting enough moisture is only part of the solution to an arid problem. That’s why the chilly temperatures blanketing northeast Wyoming should be welcomed.

“What’s good about this weather pattern is it’s not coming all at once,” he said. “It’s going to get spread out in waves. And when it’s cool like this, you don’t lose much moisture to evaporation. The ground soaks it in well. So yeah, this will be really good for those northeast counties.”

Gloomy Until Mother’s Day

While it isn’t an official meteorological phenomenon, Day’s oft-stated mantra for Wyoming’s spring weather is that winter doesn’t historically go away until after Mother’s Day. But with Mother’s Day less than a week away, he isn’t quite ready to put out a forecast for this year’s celebration of mom on Sunday.

“I don’t want to overpromise a nice weekend at this point,” he said. “We’ll have to see how things play out before we can get a precise weekend forecast.”

May is historically one of the wettest months of the year for Wyoming. Day said the latter half of May is when temperatures start to trend warmer and the days stay sunny.

Wyomingites will have to endure another week of windy, wintry weather before summer-like conditions set in. Day said that’s just the cold, harsh reality of spring in the Cowboy State.

“May is normally one of the wettest months of the year, and I think it’s going to be tracking very close to the averages,” he said. “Everyone’s ready for the warmer weather, and we will get some warm days soon. But we must suffer through this first.”

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.

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