As dozens of Powell Panthers plan to be in Laramie for Friday’s state championship football game, Park County School District No. 1 leaders decided to cancel school at all levels.

Superintendent Jay Curtis announced the decision Monday evening, explaining that the district was inundated with requests from employees to take off Friday to attend the football game. The district’s substitute pool couldn’t cover all the requests.

Administrators determined that, in addition to up to 50 staff members who could potentially be absent, some 30 to 40 percent of Powell High School students would also be gone on Friday.

“The football team, band and cheerleader squad alone accounts for nearly 100 students,” Curtis said.

Principals from Powell Middle School and the elementary schools also expected quite a few absences among students and staff.

“The largest impact at those levels, however, could be the lack of subs to cover classes,” Curtis said.

While it’s hard to quantify the exact impact the absences would have on the school day, “suffice to say, this causes a SUBSTANTIAL disruption to the educational environment of the school district as a whole,” Curtis wrote.

“If we say that we care about providing high quality instruction, then the only logical choice is to cancel school for the day … and make up that day at a later time, when we can assuredly provide the quality instructional environment that we demand,” he continued.

Curtis noted that Friday is a half-day of instruction, as Powell schools transitioned to a 4.5-day school week last year.

It isn’t the first time Powell has canceled school for a Panther football state championship, and the superintendent said some may feel that the district is supporting football over other sports or activities.

“This could not be further from the truth,” Curtis said. “This is in fact, not about football, it is about quality instruction.”

If any other event is expected to bring a similar number of absences, “rest assured that we will be having this EXACT same conversation,” he wrote.

“This decision comes from a practical standpoint of reacting to a very specific set of circumstances, which ultimately creates a situation in which we lose an instructional day to an event that is beyond our control,” Curtis continued.

— By Tessa Baker