- Wyoming PBS, Wyoming Public Media, and Cowboy State Daily present Vote 2026, A Debate Between Candidates and the Race for Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction, live from the auditorium at Riverton High School.

Greetings viewers, audience members and candidates.

I'm Steve Peck, public affairs producer for Wyoming PBS.

And we welcome you to tonight's general election debate among candidates for Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction.

That post currently is held by Megan Degenfelder, a Republican, who did not seek reelection after one term in office in order to run for governor.

This is the second of two debates tonight.

This debate was proceeded immediately by our US House of Representatives candidates.

The general election is Tuesday, November 3rd, and in Wyoming, early voting began October 5th and is ongoing.

You heard our debate partners during the opening sequence of this debate, and we add our thanks now to Fremont County School District 25 and Superintendent Jodi Ibach for hosting this debate.

All ballot certified candidates were invited to take part tonight.

Those who accepted are on our stage here.

The order of speaking was determined by a random drawing backstage a few minutes ago in which the candidates participated.

This debate is being aired and streamed live by Wyoming PBS and Wyoming Public Media.

Our debate comprises four segments, including first, a preview question sent to the candidates in advance.

Second, several questions in sequence to the full slate of candidates with each candidate answering the same questions.

Third, a short answer lightning round with each candidate responding to a brief prompt.

We expect to have time for as many as 10 lightning round cues.

Finally, a 60 second closing statement for each candidate with 60 seconds allotted.

In a joint briefing before the debate, the candidates heard our expectations for decorum and conduct civilly during the debate on our stage.

I'm the moderator of tonight's debate.

I'll also be a questioning panelist as well.

I'm joined on the panel by two experienced Wyoming journalists, Clair McFarland of Cowboy State Daily and Jordan Uplinger of Wyoming Public Media.

Wyoming Public Media and Wyoming PBS are separate and unaffiliated organizations.

The timer for the debate is Ryan Schuckman of Wyoming PBS.

His traffic light device shows green and the candidates are speaking.

When the light turns yellow, they have 10 seconds remaining.

It blinks at five seconds and an alarm accompanies the red light.

If necessary, I'll cut you short if you have time to finish a sentence or a though.

Please don't filibuster.

Now we meet the candidates participating in tonight's debate, introduced from left to right as you see them.

Ana Cordova, Democratic Party nominee.

And Steve Harshman, Republican Party nominee.

Candidates, thanks for being here tonight.

Now it's time for the preview question that you were sent in advance.

Appearing on the Wyoming general election ballot on November 3rd is proposition one, a measure which if approved by voters would cut Wyoming's residential property taxes effectively by 50%.

Property tax revenue as a primary funder for Wyoming's public school system.

What's your position on proposition one and its potential effect on K-12 school funding in Wyoming?

Let's go over your first 90 seconds.

- Thank you.

And thank you to everyone who is hosting this debate and who is watching here or at home.

So I am absolutely opposed to proposition one.

I think that it funnels money away from public schools and other public needs, whether that's fire, weed and pest, other critical needs that communities in Wyoming rely on.

And another thing is that the selling point to proposition one is that it's providing tax relief to the citizens of Wyoming.

The thing is though that the Wyoming legislature has already done a very good job of providing tax relief to those who are most vulnerable in our state.

So there are exemptions for seniors who are 65 and older who have lived in their home for 25 years.

They have that 50% reduction already.

Additionally, those who may have a lower income also receive tax breaks on their property taxes when their income is compared either to their county or their state.

So I think this move is not great just because it doesn't have a plan also to compensate for that loss of property tax income that, again, our schools rely on, that so many community services rely on.

So while it sounds attractive to have tax relief, I think our schools and our communities are much more important.

- Thank you.

Mr.

Harshman, 90 seconds.

- Okay.

Good evening.

Thank you for that question and thank you for having us and thank you for the folks who are here and those who are at home watching and of course Riverton High School and this beautiful auditorium and go Wolverines and really thank you to Ms.

Cordova for throwing her hat in the ring and it's just really an honor to be here.

And you know, we've had property taxes since 1869, since we were a territory and property taxes are 100% local, 70% to our local schools, 30% to local communities for those services we depend on, fire and police and hospitals and those things.

So the problem with this initiative, I will vote no on prop one because of the harm it's going to do to our schools and our local communities.

But the problem with the initiative, it really two things.

It doesn't include the land that your house sits on and then it doesn't have a cap at one million or five million.

And so most of this rebate is going to go to Teton County and to the folks who interestingly enough have not really asked for this relief.

And so, you know, with the decline in these public services and then these protective safety services, we're going to see our homeowner's insurance go up.

We're going to pay for this on the back end of this.

And so I'm really concerned about that.

We're not like the federal government where we print money.

We pay our bills.

We're a conservative state and I think we've solved this problem with three bills in the legislature that I've either authored or supported, the 25%, the 50% for long time homeowners, and then the 4% cap are working nicely.

Thank you.

- Thank you, sir.

The next question is from Clair McFarland of Cowboy State Daily.

Mr.

Harshman, you'll go first.

The response time is 60 seconds.

- How can Wyoming equip school staffers to deal with student behavior problems?

- Just so I heard that correctly, the... - How can Wyoming equip school staffers to deal with student behavior problems?

- Yeah, and I think it's a great question.

I obviously training is part of that thing, but I think you know, we have, we have currently in our current funding model allocated more money for particularly elementary counselors as well.

But I think you know, the whole discipline piece and it's changed.

It's changed in the last 10 years.

So I think training and professional development's going to be a part of that.

Expectations and leadership by administration is huge.

And then you know, also setting that kind of that tone as leaders in our communities, school boards, those things that of high expectations for our kids.

But I think training of our staff members is, is critical to that for sure.

Thank you.

- Thank you, sir.

Ms.

Cordova, 60 seconds.

- Thank you.

And thank you for that question.

When it comes to behavioral problems in our schools, I think we can solve a lot of them through our schools, our school districts, our educators, and our professionals working alongside other agencies we have here in Wyoming to help ensure that students come to school ready to learn.

So that means with a full belly after a full night's rest, in a place that feels safe with people who care about them.

And so by expanding these relationships to these other state agencies that provide services to make sure that no child falls between the gaps, is left in the cracks or otherwise is left to, to fend for themselves to some degree that a lot of our behavioral problems will go down.

You know, there's a lot linked to things like hunger or you know, socioeconomic status.

And so if we solve those problems, we will also solve a lot of the behavioral problems.

- Thank you.

The next question is from Jordan Uplinger of Wyoming Public Media.

Ms.

Cordova, we'll start with you.

The response time is 60 seconds.

- Should schools ban cell phones during instruction time?

If so, how would you make that happen?

- Thank you for that question.

So I think that it would be appropriate for the lower grades, elementary type students to have a full ban.

I, I cannot really see many times that a landline in the school office wouldn't be appropriate if a child really needed to get ahold of a parent, other caregiver, or in another emergency situation.

For the older grades in like junior high, middle school, high school, I think it's completely appropriate to have bans on during basically instructional time.

So before school is fine, after school is fine.

The schools have lockers.

There's the means to store the, the phones during instructional time while still allowing students to be able to reach their parents for things like extracurriculars, which of course high school students are more likely to participate in.

- Thank you, Mr.

Harshman.

- Yeah, thank you for that question.

I, I actually co-sponsored that bill that required school districts to adopt cell phone policies.

It's not the job of the state superintendent or the authorization of this job to really tell school districts what you're going to do.

These are local decisions.

The question is, should they?

Personally, yes.

I think you know, and, and most of our schools around Wyoming have, have these policies that in fact ban them during instruction time.

They're put away, they're put in these cell phone containers when they come into the room and you know, you talk to teachers and it, it's, it changes everything.

Kids talk to each other more and obviously they're more involved and, and so it's certainly a huge distraction.

There's time and a place for everything, but most of that time and place is not in the middle of this learning piece in the classroom.

And so schools are moving on this and like everything, you know, things change and our schools will adapt.

And so I think we're moving in the right direction.

- Thank you, sir.

The next question is from me.

Mr.

Harshman, we'll start with you.

60 second responses.

You were among the legislators who spent a considerable amount of time on what's called recalibration of the K-12 education system.

Most recently what is recalibration and how do you feel about the results of the most recent effort?

- Yeah, thank you for the question.

I've served on four recalibrations.

When we started the, the statewide, the school funding model, it's a cost-based model and our law requires us every five years to just examine it, make sure we're keeping up with costs.

And so we've done that, and we've done that.

In fact, when Speaker Bebout or President Bebout and I, and when I served as Speaker, we actually, when we were really in a financial crunch 2016, we, we formed a, a special recalibration committee.

And it's all about examining costs to make sure that the cost of education in Wyoming that we keep up with that.

And, and of course it costs more or costs are different in Teton County than they are in Niobro County and all these things that go into account.

What we saw in the last recalibration, instead of looking at the current law and making adjustments, kind of threw it all out and started over.

And so there's some good things about it.

There were some bad things and there were some ugly things that are going to need to be fixed here in the upcoming legislature.

- Thank you, sir.

Ms.

Cordova, 60 seconds.

Thank - You.

So when it comes to the recalibration, I'm really concerned about the data-driven and evidence-based reasoning behind the different funding levels.

So one thing that's kind of central to the bill is that school districts are funded by the average daily membership of their school district, and that's broken down into elementary grades, junior high grades, and high school grades.

And it's based on either two or three years based on the different recalibration models we've seen in the last 20 years.

So those districts that are seeing declines in enrollment are also seeing declines in funding and vice versa.

The place I'd really like to see some data-driven and evidence-based reasoning for the funding model is those cutoffs, because one thing that I've noticed is that because schools don't have the economy of scale, some of the smaller schools get more money, and there seem to be these sort of arbitrary cutoffs, like a school district of 200, where I think that 200 number is not really come to in a rigorous way.

- Thank you.

Clair McFarland has the next question.

Ms.

Cordova, we'll start with you.

60 second response.

- The superintendent of public instruction here recently entered a high profile headline territory dealing with data center and wind farm decisions with respect to state lands on the state border land commissioners.

How would you approach those issues?

- Oh, I... Thank you for the question.

I would approach it like I approach all things that require leadership, and that's by listening and research.

I'm a scientist by training.

I'm also a, have a law degree, and so I'm very analytical.

I want to know kind of the underlying facts.

I try to not interject too much emotion or, you know, how people feel or gut feelings about what should be done.

I want to see real evidence, listen to people, listen to their stories, hear how it's really affecting people, not just kind of this gut feeling of, you know, that people in Cheyenne think is good for the state or that, you know, people like from the data centers are feeding to our local politicians.

So I think just really being a good listener, asking the right questions, getting the right people in the room and making sure that we find solutions that are appropriate for everyone is the right way to go.

- Thank you.

Mr.

Harshman.

- Yeah, I think as a member of the state land board, which is of course in our constitution, as one of the five electeds over these trust lands, and of course, Wyoming had four million acres at statehood and we've sold off 20% of those in our history.

We've kind of banned that now.

There's 3.2 million acres of trust lands.

Most of those are for public schools.

And so that has generated a $6 billion common school account, which pays about 25% of our bills.

So these are trust lands, they're working lands, and there's, you know, you raise your right hand to support the constitution, there's a duty to make sure those are, those are lands are working for our kids.

Now, with that said, the gravel pit you've heard about in Casper, spent two years of my life on it, still ongoing.

That's in House District 37.

We weren't a very good neighbor.

And I think as Ms.

Cordova said, you have to research all of these.

You have to be a good neighbor as well.

And I think there's a place and there's a way for Wyoming to develop, but we got to be good neighbors and do it the right way.

- Thank you, candidates.

Jordan Uplinger has the next question.

Mr.

Harshman, we'll begin with you.

60 second response.

- Your predecessor issued guidance for school districts to develop artificial intelligence use policies.

What kind of guidance would you issue to schools around this topic, and to what extent do you support AI use in classrooms?

- Yeah, that's a great question.

And I think there's certainly it's a tremendous tool and it's going to, it's changing lives right now, but there's also a park, and when I, you know, toured around the state to our 48 school districts, talked to a lot of teachers, been a 40-year teacher and coach myself, I'm hearing from a lot of teachers that have gone back to, "Hey, we, we're not turning in type papers anymore.

Kids are handwriting them because it's so easy to be AI generated.

We want to see what they know."

And so I think you're seeing things kind of go in cycles in education many times, and I think you're seeing kind of a return to some of that.

Will AI be used?

Absolutely.

Should it be used?

Absolutely.

But is there a, is there parts where we, we want to seal it off and make our kids work and get those base skills?

Absolutely.

And I think that's being done across our state.

- Thank you, sir.

Ms.

Cordova.

- Thank you.

I think that when it comes to the state superintendent's office and guidance, that really is the word, it's guidance.

It's that the school districts can come to the Department of Education here in Wyoming and say, "We have this problem that we'd like to solve.

We see that our kids are misusing AI and we'd like to put in a policy to make sure that they're using it appropriately and that they're learning things appropriately in the classroom, that they're using their brains, that they're solving problems, that they're thinking critically."

That said, I don't think the state superintendent should be putting out any mandates.

It definitely should be guidance and should be based off of working relationships with these communities, with these local school districts, local school boards, and local teachers to hear what are the issues around AI.

And so I think there's definitely room within the superintendent's office to have all of those resources ready to kind of have best practices when it comes to AI in the classroom.

- Thank you.

The next question comes from me and Ms.

Cordova, you'll be the first to respond.

Response time is 60 seconds.

School safety has become a major topic in public policy and conversation and has been for many years.

Do you think Wyoming schools are safe enough?

- Thank you for that question.

I do think we have incredibly safe schools.

I think we have very responsible students, very responsible educators, and people who understand that school is a place to go and learn.

It's not a place to fight or be divisive or have an us versus them mentality.

So I do think that Wyoming schools are very safe.

That said, there's always room for improvement.

And so while it's definitely a priority to have safe schools, I'm not sure that improving the safety of schools would be high on my list when there are other more pressing matters.

I think we do a pretty good job of it.

- Thank you.

Mr.

Harshman.

- Yeah, I think, you know, Wyoming leads the nation with 93, 94% of our kids attend our public schools.

They're really the foundation of our republic and, and, and our schools are, you know, they're part of our society.

They face all these same challenges that we all, that every institution does.

I think they've responded very well.

I think it was one of the failings of the recalibration.

One of the, you know, the things was to solve the school resource officer issue.

They're not anywhere in the model.

I'm sure Riverton High School, the schools in Casper and Cheyenne all around the state have resource officers to help with that.

But I think you know, like all those things, everybody is aware of those issues.

Things have changed.

I think when many of us in the audience were kids, it was, it was nuclear attack drills.

It was a different world then, and then different types of drills.

And now we have these these shooter drills and violence drills.

But I think our we've evolved.

I think our people are on it.

I think our families are strong and we'll keep moving forward.

Doing a great job.

- Candidates, thank you.

That concludes the general question portion of the debate.

We move on now to our lightning round, which we expect to last about eight minutes.

Each panelist will give a short prompt to you and you'll have 15 seconds to respond however you would like.

The first one comes from Clair McFarland and Mr.

Harshman, you'll begin.

- School choice.

- Yeah.

I, I parents are the kids first at primary teacher and this should be their choice, whatever they'd like to, where they want to send their kids or school them at home or public, private or homeschooling, that's their choice.

100%.

- When it comes to school choice, I think that public money needs to stay in public schools.

So while parents definitely should have the choice on whether or not to send their kids to public school, I don't think alternatives to public school should be funded by public money.

- Candidates, thank you.

The next prompt from Jordan Uplinger and Ms.

Cordova, you'll be first.

- The concept of the four-day school week.

- So when it comes to the four-day school week, I think it really comes down to what local communities find works best for their students.

I think as long as we hit the benchmarks of high academic achievement, if an alternate schedule is the way that a district decides to do it, that's completely fine.

- Thank you.

Mr.

Harshman.

- Yeah, I think that's a local choice.

And again, it's what works for that local community and that local school.

They're going to make work for their kids.

And so it's working around Wyoming, certainly.

It's not probably my first choice, but it's up to the local school boards and local communities.

- Thank you.

The next prompt is from me, Mr.

Harshman, you'll begin.

The status of teacher pay in Wyoming.

- Teacher pay has improved dramatically, and that's one of the good things.

I talked about the good, the bad, the ugly.

We fully funded the teacher pay.

It's been underfunded for a few years, certainly as we've gone through some economic downturns, but it's going to be a big part of that and we got to stay on top of it as we move forward, certainly, to recruit the best people we can here and grow our own right here in Wyoming.

- Thank you.

Ms.

Cordova.

- I think that teachers should be paid more.

That is one of the failings of the recalibration in terms of teacher pay and being able to retain teachers and also just trusting teachers as experts.

They've, they are the experts in their field and should be treated and compensated like that.

- Candidates, thank you.

The next prompt is from Clair McFarland.

- WYTOP.

- Ms.

Cordova, you're first.

- I'm sorry?

- WYTOP is the standardized test that Wyoming students take.

Some teachers, if you need more context, some school staffers complain that students are over-tested, some have strong opinions about WYTOP itself.

- Of course.

So when it comes to standardized testing, I think it should definitely be minimized in terms of instructional days.

I feel like there's so many other viable ways of assessing our schools, assessing our students, assessing our educators, and that we can do so in a metric and data-driven way without over-testing our students or relying on using instructional days.

Thank - You.

Mr.

Hirsch?

- I think the WYTOP, the standards-based testing, since no child left behind, it has gotten out of control, needs a serious, you know, study and return.

Really doesn't tell parents what they want to know about their child.

It basically measures school against school and creates a bell curve.

And so it doesn't really give us the information on each child, how they're doing.

- Candidates, thanks.

That concludes the quick lightning round.

We've now moved on to our closing statements.

Each closing statement is 60 seconds.

We'll go in the reverse order that we began, meaning Mr.

Harshman, you'll be first.

Okay.

- Thank you.

Thank you again to everyone here at PBS and, and for hosting us and all the folks here again and folks who are watching online and Ms.

Cordova and, and again, appreciate all of you and it's just really an honor to be here and appreciate the opportunity.

As someone who spent 40 years as a teacher and coach, I know the, you know, firsthand the challenges and triumphs that our schools face every day.

And that's why I'm running for this job for superintendent and and I'll bring a steady and experienced hand leadership to the Department of Education, one that focuses on our student achievement and respects the hard work and concerns of our educators and our parents and our local school boards and trusting our local school boards.

And as your superintendent, I'm going to keep the focus on our kids and, and then our, our schools and really our future because Wyoming's future is built by our, our strong families and our kids and our teachers in our classrooms.

And so Wyoming kids are roughly 20% of our population.

They're 100% of our future, and that's our job is to pass that baton onto them.

So thank you.

I'm Steve Harshman, running for superintendent.

Thank you.

- Thank you, sir.

Ms.

Cordova.

- Thank you.

And thank you again so much for everyone who's put on this debate, who's come here to watch, who's watching online, and for everyone who's been so supportive of my race and for education in Wyoming.

We really have a legacy of excellent education in Wyoming, and I hope to maintain that high bar of academic achievement, professionalism, and you know, supporting our communities and our community's future.

I really believe in the transformational power of public education.

I am a product of Wyoming Public Schools.

I had a great experience.

I had so many opportunities, and I'm really hoping to pass that on to future generations to make sure that they also have the opportunities to do anything.

And that includes a focus on also incorporating career and technical education in addition to directly entering the workforce after high school graduation and not solely focusing on college prep.

I hope that you agree that I will bring that kind of leadership, and if you do, please vote for me November 3rd.

Thank you.

- Candidates, thank you.

Ana Cordova, Democratic Party nominee, Steve Harshman, Republican nominee.

We appreciate your participation tonight.

This concludes and completes our 2026 election year debates on Wyoming PBS.

We conducted nearly a dozen debates over the primary and general election season.

We thank all the candidates who participated and to Wyoming PBS staff.

Remember, the general election is November 3rd.

Early voting is ongoing.

Thanks for watching.

This is Wyoming PBS.