Wyoming people appreciate the importance of quality education

Wyoming people should have access to the maximum amount of quality educational opportunities possible.

When education is discussed in our state, it should not be just a K-12 issue, but it should be discussed in the context that all people of all ages should have available to them methods of education which will improve the quality of their lives.

Bill Sniffin supports the recent Wyoming Supreme Court decision to improve capital school facilities but urges caution when it comes to moving too quickly.

We need to look at this court decision as an opportunity to provide the best educational resources for all our people. Often, the school buildings are the most prominent and most utilized buildings in a community. We need to build them with an eye of serving the entire community, not just K-12 students, he says.

Bill Sniffin is a big booster of the individual teacher. With his vast amount of business experience, he has come to appreciate the person who is on the front line. He feels that with teachers being our front line soldiers in our war against ignorance, we need to give them special care.

Although he has supported increasing teachers' salaries, he wants other things for them, too. He worries that some of our best teachers are suffering burnout. He supports a program of sabbaticals and teacher refresher courses as ways to keep these teachers fired up about their main job - educating our students.

What about old school buildings?

He also thinks the state has a golden opportunity for economic development in just about every community in the state, once new school buildings are constructed. What is to happen to the old buildings? To have this kind of infrastructure standing in a community offers great opportunities for expanded job sites.

Another worry he has is the thought process that is going into building these school buildings. Some communities appear to be coming up short with the proposed facilities. Bill Sniffin sees education as a opportunity for everyone, from preschool to senior citizens.

"Our winters are long and our distances are vast," he says. The chances for our people to educate themselves should be maximized at all costs. We should make it easy and we should make it cheap. If elected governor, that will be one of my highest priorities."

He is a big booster of the University of Wyoming and of the community colleges. Our higher learning institutions will have to play a bigger role in helping all our citizens, when it comes to education,he says.

We have way too many of our students leaving the state for higher education. He also worries about the drain of graduates who leave the state as soon as their education is completed. We have to do something about this.

Bill Sniffin's companies have been pioneers when it comes to the Internet. He sees an almost infinite set of opportunities for all Wyoming's citizens when it comes to cyber learning. "We need to look around the rest of the country and world and learn from other places so we can implement the best systems, possible," he says. He credits outgoing governor Jim Geringer for having good foresight in this area.

What about vocational students?

A large percentage of Wyoming's students do not plan to go to college at all. Bill worries that many of them are slipping through the cracks. "We can't let our system cheat these students of their maximum opportunity to get the best vocational education possible," he says.

Although he admits to being an unabashed booster of the individual teacher, he has attended more school board meetings than all the other governor candidates combined. He believes that trustees have the most difficult and most unappreciated jobs in all of government. They deserve praise for their efforts and their hard work. We need to help them find solutions to their education problems.

Bill Sniffin worries that we are losing our best teachers to out-of-state districts, which come in here with fat contracts. He says a major effort must be undertaken to keep our Wyoming teachers in Wyoming. It is no secret the real key to Wyoming's future business success is occurring today in our schools, Bill believes As Wyoming governor, he anticipates working as hard as possible for the best education opportunities possible for ALL of Wyoming's citizens.

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Authorized by William C. Sniffin
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Bill Sniffin for Governor - P.O. Box 900 ­ Lander, WY 82520 (307) 332-3111, ext. 17