CASPER — Concerns about a cross-dressing custodian at Crest Hill Elementary School in Casper escalated Monday during a Natrona County School District 1 Board of Trustees meeting.
Two local residents demanded the resignation of the board’s vice chair for a social media post about a parent, while another warned the district against allowing young minds to be indoctrinated, and law enforcement escorted a state legislator from the public comment microphone.
Even after Vice Chair Dana Howie apologized and explained her social media post about an elementary school parent’s concerns about the custodian, Board Chair Kevin Christopherson complained about internet and media misinformation and urged people to avoid it and get “recentered.”
He also stated that a Casper state representative who appeared before the board on September 8 admitted she had no idea what she was talking about with regard to the janitor.
That prompted state House District 38 Rep. Jayme Lien, R-Casper, to attempt to respond: “I will not be called a liar.”
Casper Police Department officers stood beside Lien, turning off her microphone and escorting her away from a public comment chair and microphone she approached and sat in during the board comment period.
Lien told Cowboy State Daily after the meeting that she attended the board meeting on September 8 because “multiple parents reached out to me about a situation going on in an elementary school and asked for help.”
It was not a result of an internet or social media post.
“I asked if this board was willingly neglecting state law in talking about compelled speech and private spaces,” she informed me. “Those are two laws that took effect on July 1 of this year.
“So trustee Christopherson’s claim that I am up here ill-informed and lying is a lie. Because compelled speech took effect this year.
Calls For Resignation
Meanwhile, former state representative and Casper resident Jeanette Ward addressed the board about Howie’s post.
The board vice chair responded to a Crest Hill custodian supporter in a thread, commenting on the concerned parent’s social media post.
The Crest Hill parent had written about her elementary son’s concerns about the janitor, who he knew as a man in previous years but has been dressing as a female since the school started, speaking in a higher-pitched voice, and allegedly requesting to be addressed by female pronouns.
According to Howie’s post, the school superintendent and the district “did step in to make a plan to help protect this custodian.”
In the post, Howie wrote, “God help (the concerned parent) (or me) the next time I see her.”
“Perhaps Trustee Howie would like to elaborate on what kind of help God will need to provide to this concerned mom when Trustee Howie runs into her,” Ward reported. “This kind of disdain for the citizens of this district who elected her is unacceptable and Trustee Howie should resign.”
When addressing the board, a man who identified himself as Dustin and is the father of a district student declined to give his last name. He also urged Howie to “resign tonight” for threatening the parent.
State House District 35 Rep. Tony Locke, R-Casper, told the board that the district’s schools serve the children, not the staff, teachers, administrators, or “anyone else.”
“If there is any indoctrination being allowed to happen in our schools it is unacceptable, if you think about that just for a moment,” he told reporters. “If one person says that we should refer to this biological male as a female, we are teaching our children to lie.
“And that should be a despicable thought to everybody on this board in front of me and everybody in this room.”
Locke claimed that attempting to “indoctrinate” elementary students by having them refer to males using female pronouns causes confusion among the young students.
“It is ridiculous for us to be allowing that to happen,” he told me.
Apology
During board comments, Howie said that her social media post regarding a “transitioning custodian at one of our elementary schools” was responding to a parent who supported the janitor and once had a student at the school.
That parent was upset with the other parent’s post.
Howie described Wyoming as a different and less tolerant place than where she grew up.
“I was very upset to see how this mom was going after the custodian; as if their very being was not allowed around her child,” she exclaimed.
Howie stated that she did not intend to use the phrase “God help her or me” as a threat. She described herself as someone who does not enjoy putting out mousetraps or killing bugs.
“I move bugs outside rather than kill them and I would certainly never hurt another human being,” she informed me.
Howie stated that “God did help” her in recognizing that the parent is “fearful for her child” as a result of exposure to something “outside the realm of their religion” or fear of “undue influence.”
She then apologized.
“Her fear came out in anger and mine did, too,” Howie claimed. “And for that I deeply apologize.”
During her comment period, Trustee Alex Petrino stated that it can be difficult to be “measured” when responding to situations that the board faces.
“Especially when we see potential discrimination happening,” according to her. “Our district welcomes all students, faculty, and staff. We don’t cherry-pick who comes here, and we have a nondiscrimination policy.”
She stated that the city of Casper also has a nondiscrimination ordinance.
‘A Post Off The Internet’
Christopherson defended Howie and seemed to characterize Lien’s concerns at the Sept. 8 meeting as something she got online.
“We had a state representative get up in front of us last week (Sept. 8) and admit that she did not know what she was talking about and make accusations that weren’t true, and she got it off of a post off the internet,” Christopherson told me. “We all know the internet is correct. We all know reporters are always correct.
“I have been reported on maybe 50 times in my life even for really good things that I’ve done, and I’ve never had a reporter get it 100% right.”
He stated that Howie is a woman of integrity and poses no threat to anyone. If people look for a threat, they will find it, according to Christopherson.
Christopherson stated that he had just returned from a few days of elk hunting with relatives.
“I ask you in the audience, anyone who can to spend some time away from the phone, away from the articles, away from all that BS, (to) get recentered in your life, figure out what is important,” he went on. “We’re all here because we know the kids are the next generation.
“This is a great district, and we have wonderful employees, but there is always a problem. And if you want to see that problem, and you want to focus on it, that’s all you’ll see.”
