When Communities Rise: Rebuilding Education from the Ground Up
By Coebie Taylor-Logan, Retired Principal & Educator — 31 Years of Service, Natrona County School District #1
The Rebuild Begins
When schools close, the silence that follows isn’t just the absence of children’s voices, it's the loss of belonging.
As a leader during several school closures, I had the honor and heartbreak of walking alongside communities through that silence. At Mills Elementary, I advocated fiercely for something unusual: moving the entire school community rather than dismantling it. The goal was to preserve relationships between teachers, students, and families that had been built over generations.
The transition brought us to a new space that could house more than 450 students. Overnight, Mills Elementary’s enrollment of 189 became Journey Elementary’s population of 400+ PreK–5th grade students.
But no one could have prepared us for the trauma that followed. Teachers found themselves displaced from their colleagues. Families were forced to seek new schools or jobs miles from their neighborhoods. The close-knit identity that had held the community together fractured overnight.
As a principal, I carried the weight of that shift ensuring every child felt seen, heard, and valued while rebuilding trust among staff who felt devalued by a process that had given them no voice. The parents, too, had to learn to trust a new system that hadn’t consulted them before dismantling their own.
Those experiences taught me that school closures don’t just close buildings, they close trust. And if we’re going to rebuild, we must rebuild with transparency, heart, and a new vision of what school can be.
Rethinking What School Could Be
Public schools as we know them are largely a product of the Industrial Revolution and the social reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The modern school model with its age-based grades, timed bells, and standardized curriculum was designed to meet the needs of a growing industrial workforce, not a dynamic 21st-century society. Education historian Sir Ken Robinson called this the “factory model of schooling,” built to produce uniform outcomes rather than unlock individual potential.
We’re no longer living in that era. The world demands creativity, adaptability, and emotional intelligence skills that aren’t measured by standardized tests. According to the World Economic Forum (2023), the most valuable future-ready skills include critical thinking, collaboration, and complex problem-solving none of which thrive in a one size fits all model.
Long before my retirement, I saw this shift quietly unfolding. Families began creating their own rhythms taking Fridays for travel or family time, arriving later in the mornings, seeking flexibility. Instead of rebellion, these were acts of recalibration. Parents were intuitively trying to restore balance between learning and living.
Our response, though, was often to double down on compliance stricter attendance policies, tighter schedules. But what if those patterns were feedback, not failure? What if families were showing us the next step forward that it’s time to redesign learning around how people actually live and grow today?
A Day Designed for Family and Growth
Let’s pause and ask:
Do Wyoming families want students who are problem solvers who know where their food comes from and how to sustain it?
Do they want creatives who can think outside the box to solve problems in new ways rather than navigating endless policies and hoops?
Do they want collaborators who value fairness, courage, and integrity the Cowboy Values that shaped our state?
Do they want children who contribute meaningfully to their communities, not just perform academically?
If the answer is yes and I believe it is then the school day should reflect those values.
Imagine a restructured day where:
K–12 students attend 8:00–11:00 a.m. for foundational academics reading, writing, math, communication.
Afternoons are for real-world learning. Younger students explore through play, storytelling, and nature. Older students apply their learning to life: cooking a family meal to demonstrate fractions, designing a greenhouse irrigation system to explore biology, or presenting a project before city council to practice civic engagement.
This model aligns with research from Stanford University’s Challenge Success Project (2021), which found that reducing excessive academic hours and increasing real-world application improves student motivation, mental health, and retention of learning.
Children would return home for family meals, rest, and reflection. Sports and arts would still thrive but balanced with home life.
This isn’t lowering standards; it’s returning education to its original purpose: to grow capable, curious, and connected citizens.
The Power of Real-World, Family-Led Learning
This approach isn’t new, it's ancient. For thousands of years, children learned through apprenticeship and community contribution. Before compulsory schooling, education was woven into daily life: farming, building, storytelling, and care for one another. UNESCO calls this “lifewide learning” the idea that education doesn’t happen apart from life but within it.
Modern Problem-Based Learning (PBL) revives that wisdom. Instead of memorizing for tests, students learn by tackling authentic problems and developing solutions that matter. Studies by the Buck Institute for Education (2020) show that PBL improves critical thinking, collaboration, and long-term retention skills our workforce and democracy desperately need.
In Wyoming, where the land still defines our way of life, PBL can mean cultivating a greenhouse, managing livestock, or designing sustainable-energy projects. These lessons embody Cowboy Values: courage, hard work, responsibility, and respect for the land.
Many Natrona County schools already have greenhouses, yet few are woven into the daily curriculum. Imagine if students grew nutrient-dense foods, learned soil restoration, and provided for their community connecting biology, chemistry, and compassion all in one lesson. This work restores both the soil and the soul.
Beyond agriculture, real-world learning could include community partnerships:
High schoolers interning with local tradespeople and entrepreneurs.
Middle school students designing water-conservation systems.
Elementary students running kindness campaigns or recycling programs.
When children contribute to the real world, they become capable, confident, and compassionate humans. They see that learning is not something done to them it’s something they can use to shape their world.
Building the Blueprint Together
Here’s the truth: you the community are the taxpayers who built these schools. You fund the teachers, the buses, the meals, and the programs. You have a right to a voice in how your schools evolve.
Wyoming families deserve a seat at the table when closures or consolidations are discussed. Transparency and trust must be restored.
We’ve seen this cycle before. Garfield Elementary merged with Willard Elementary, two blue-collar community schools that served hardworking families only to close altogether a few years later. Now Evansville Elementary and Paradise Valley Elementary are anxiously watching the same fate approach.
Yes, there may be fewer children being born, but this goes deeper than birth rates. The district’s charter school continues to expand, while traditional community schools like Bar Nunn and Woods are shrinking. Is anyone asking why?
Meanwhile, some schools report “waiting lists” even though enrollment numbers show they aren’t full. Every spring, classrooms are cut or merged, only to be reopened weeks before school starts, creating chaos for staff and panic for families waiting to see if they’ll get their first choice.
Why is enrollment controlled by the central office instead of being managed within community schools of choice? Who ultimately decides which children get a seat and which families must wait? It certainly doesn’t appear that parents have much voice if there are “waiting lists” for a public education.
And what about Bar Nunn, where nearly 80 percent of families now bus their children across town each day? Has anyone asked why families no longer feel connected to their neighborhood school? Or the Woods community, a school with over 30 years of success built on project-driven, theme-based learning now facing possible closure despite decades of parent partnership and innovation?
These are not numbers on a spreadsheet; they are the lives of families and educators whose voices have gone unheard. When families stop feeling heard, they disengage and when they disengage, schools lose their heart.
The blueprint for rebuilding starts with three commitments:
Dialogue: Listen to families before drafting plans.
Ownership: Involve local businesses, nonprofits, and elders in shaping schools.
Restoration: Return to what matters most: belonging, creativity, and courage.
The Next Generation of Schools
Let’s imagine the next generation of Wyoming schools not as systems of standardization, but as ecosystems of curiosity and strength.
Every child has unique gifts: creativity, empathy, craftsmanship, or innovation. We’re not building robots; we’re nurturing thinkers, doers, and dreamers who will carry forward the values that make Wyoming extraordinary.
Schools of the future should be:
Holistic integrating wellness, emotional intelligence, and hands-on learning.
Place-based connecting education to the local environment, economy, and culture.
Future-focused preparing students to lead in emerging fields like sustainable energy, regenerative agriculture, and digital entrepreneurship.
This aligns with findings from Education Reimagined (2023), which reports that community-anchored, learner-centered schools outperform traditional models in engagement, attendance, and civic participation.
We are raising the next generation of innovators, collaborators, and peacekeepers, the ones who will rebuild not just education, but the systems that sustain Wyoming and the world.
The Return of the Heartbeat
Communities thrive when their schools reflect their values. The strength of education isn’t measured by test scores but by connection between teachers, families, and children who feel seen and supported.
We can reclaim that connection. It starts with a conversation maybe around a kitchen table, maybe in a coffee shop, maybe at a city-council meeting. The question is simple:
“What kind of school do we want our children to grow up in?”
From that question, a movement is born.
The heartbeat of education doesn’t come from the district office. It comes from the communities that refuse to give up on their kids or each other.
A Closing Reflection
Hope is not gone, it's waiting for us to lead.
Our children are ready to learn in meaningful ways. Our families are ready to reclaim time together. Our communities are ready to build schools that reflect who we are and what we value.
If the system can’t make room for that, we’ll build it ourselves from the ground up, together.
Because education isn’t a building.
It’s a relationship.
And when we nurture it, the heartbeat returns.