The Carbon County School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously Thursday to close Sinclair Elementary School at the end of June in order to adjust to statewide funding cuts.

Sinclair’s only school is set to close June 30, saving the district an estimated $100,000 each year. Trustees say the district still owns the building and could reopen the school sometime in the future.

Sinclair Elementary’s approximately two dozen students will be bussed to Rawlins Elementary School, where they will still be able to participate in all extracurricular activities.

Trustee Gilbert Archuleta says state lawmakers cut the district’s budget by nearly $600,000 -- $350 per student -- but that wasn’t the only reason trustees voted to close the school.

“You’ve got to sit there and look at what’s fair for each of the other individual schools,” Archuleta says. “In terms of, if we have to start pulling a teacher or using other schools to subsidize one school. All of this has to come into play.”

The Wyoming Legislature cut roughly $36 million in education funding during the budget session that ended in early March. Declining attendance may further reduce funding in the coming years.

“No decision such as this is made easily. We have to consider ourselves as trustees of the entire district, not just one school,” Archuleta says.

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