School District 1 trustees look at boundaries

Sheridan County School District 1 trustees will have to decide how trustees will be elected to the school board in future – but not until after the start of 2021.

District 1 trustees are currently elected from three boundaries within the district – Dayton, Ranchester and Big Horn. But School District Superintendent Pete Kilbride says those three boundaries are currently out of line with state statutory requirements.

Kilbride said in an effort to balance the populations within the three boundaries, the Dayton boundary has been shifted to just north and west of Big Horn.

During a work session meeting last month, trustees asked Engineering Associates of Sheridan to work out a plan for redrawing the boundaries. That plan was presented in a special meeting of trustees Tuesday.

The proposed plan would create two trustee boundaries in District 1 – a single boundary encompassing Dayton and Ranchester, plus a boundary for Big Horn.

Kilbride said Dayton and Ranchester are also growing, but not at the rate of Big Horn.

He said the two-boundary plan would equalize the populations much, much better.

He said if trustees adopt the two-boundary plan, they will then have to decide how trustees would be elected to the board. Options include one trustee each from the Dayton-Ranchester area and Big Horn and three trustees at-large or two each from the two boundary areas and one at-large. A third option would be for all five trustees to be elected at-large.

Kilbride said the trustees can’t take any action until after the current election cycle, which means probably no decisions will be made until after Jan. 1 next year.