Wyoming education leaders propose classroom-discipline changes and outline school mental‑health pilots

Megan Degenfelder, Wyoming state superintendent of public instruction, told the Mental Health & Vulnerable Adult Task Force that the Department of Education will pursue statutory changes on student discipline and described pilot programs aimed at prevention, identification and referral of student mental‑health needs.

Degenfelder said the issue has been rising in schools and in teacher surveys. "This is an issue that we keep seeing, grow more and more in our schools and something that we're hearing from teachers," she said, adding the department has shared the topic with the Legislature's Joint Education Committee and is watching statutory approaches adopted in other states.

The department framed its work around a three‑part GRIT framework: prevention, identification and referral. The department described three pilot efforts in detail: BAR (a school‑level, professional‑learning approach intended to change classroom culture and strengthen teachers' ability to support students), AWARE (a grant program that embeds clinical‑level coordinators in schools to connect students and families to outside treatment) and a…