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Parent urges board to pause $75,000 Reading Horizons purchase over DEI concerns
Summary
A public commenter urged trustees to scrutinize a proposed $75,000 purchase of Reading Horizons reading materials, citing Wyoming’s HB147 and federal directives on DEI and asking the district to require vendor certification that materials do not contain prohibited DEI content.
At the start of public comment, Lara Kate Lemicki asked the board to reconsider a proposed $75,000 purchase of Reading Horizons literacy materials, raising legal and ideological concerns tied to recent state and federal directives.
Lemicki told the board that Wyoming’s new law, described in her remarks as the prohibition on institutional discrimination (HB147, effective July 1), and recent federal executive actions and Department of Education guidance require districts to avoid curriculum that favors groups based on protected characteristics. She asked trustees to request sample lesson plans from Reading Horizons and to seek vendor certification that materials do not include “lessons or reference to social justice, identity politics, or systematic inequity.”
Why it matters: The commenter asked whether using Title I funds might expose the district to federal review and asked whether Reading Horizons could certify that its materials comply with Wyoming law and any relevant federal directives. Lemicki suggested alternative literacy curricula such as Wilson or Logic of English if Reading Horizons could not provide such assurances.
Board members asked Lemicki to submit the remainder of her comments in writing so trustees and staff could review them. No board action on the purchase was recorded during the meeting; the comment was part of the public-comment period.
