By Terry Lawler

Although many school boards in Wisconsin have developed a relationship of conflict with their teachers and support staff, some are working in an atmosphere of trust and respect. The following three local associations have succeeded in working with their school boards to send letters to the Legislature calling for a change in the way Wisconsin funds education. Each of these locals – Delavan-Darien, Cuba City, and Jefferson – is working hard to fulfill the goals of the Great Schools Statewide Action Plan.

Delavan feels revenue cap’s impact
Lonnie Wallace, president of the Delavan-Darien Education Association, has watched his district diminish. Delavan-Darien High School has lost a family and consumer education instructor, as well as an English teacher and a French teacher. A staff person at the middle school was lost, the gymnastics program was cut, and class sizes have increased. Still, Wallace insists that Delavan-Darien has “kept its head above water” when compared to other Wisconsin districts, and he doesn’t blame the school board for the district’s problems.

In fact, Wallace said the DDEA has a “really good working relationship with our school board,” adding, “It’s too bad that many other EAs don’t.”
The DDEA is very active in the Great Schools Statewide Action Plan, not only for Delavan-Darien, but to help improve the situation in districts that aren’t as fortunate. “Ninety to 95% of our 176 teachers participated in ‘I see Red Day,’” Wallace said.

Lonnie Wallace

Kris Meyer

As part of its involvement in the Action Plan, the DDEA requested in October that the school board take an official stand against the Qualified Economic Offer law, school district revenue controls, and the way public education is currently funded.

“There are a lot of boards that do not have respect for their employees and are willing to impose a QEO – and they make no bones about it,” said DDEA Vice President Kris Meyer.

However, Wallace added, “We and our board know each other’s restraints.”
In September, after discussing strategy with Meyer, Wallace spoke to the school superintendent about presenting a resolution to the school board.
“He felt that this was something that he and the board could support,” Wallace said. “He also agreed that all three issues – caps, QEO and funding – had to be addressed.”

When the DDEA resolution was presented to the board, there were “some questions and discussion.”

“The board asked the superintendent for direction, and their subsequent vote was unanimous,” Wallace said. According to Meyer, “We want our board members to know we appreciate their support.”

Superintendent Jim Sorensen sent the resolution to the Wisconsin Association of School Boards and asked that it be put on the agenda at the WASB’s annual January meeting.

“We’ve never been QEO’d – our board has never mentioned it,” Wallace said. “We’ve been fortunate over the years; we haven’t had many job actions.”

Jefferson staff are caring, kid-oriented

The hard-working teachers and education support professionals in Jefferson are caring and “very kid-oriented,” according to Fran Vandre, a sixth-grade language arts teacher and president of the Jefferson Education Association.
They are also very community conscious, with many being active in local businesses and churches. “The volunteer work our teachers do is amazing,” she said.

Fran Vandre

Nona Schrader

During the lengthy, bitter strike at the local Tyson Foods plant, Jefferson teachers and ESP “donated more than $1,000, delivered a van full of diapers, donated food to the strikers’ pantry and showed up for rallies and picketing,” said JEA Vice President Nona Schrader.

“In this community we take care of each other,” Schrader said.
It is that sense of community that brought the JEA and school board together on behalf of schools and kids.

As part of the JEA’s involvement in the WEAC Great Schools Statewide Action Plan, Vandre and Schrader asked the school board to approve a resolution asking for repeal of school district revenue controls and the QEO law. They were surprised when their request was initially met with silence.

“Our board president is extremely pro-education,” Vandre said. “Board members know me; they know I’m not frivolous, that I’m down-to-earth.”
Consequently, there was disappointment in her voice when she told the board that “your silence speaks volumes.” However, the board later agreed to work with the JEA on a rewritten resolution.

“It was a compromise,” Vandre said, but it included some of the key elements of the JEA’s original resolution. The resolution states that the board is “opposed to legislation which would permanently limit school district expenditure or tax levy increases to specified annual rates.” It also specifically opposes any property tax freeze. The resolution was sent to the WASB and the Legislature.

Schrader is not surprised that the board was ultimately willing to approve a resolution. “This is a very progressive community,” she said.

Cuba City ‘punished by revenue caps’

In its letter to the Legislature asking for the repeal of the current revenue caps, the Cuba City School Board and the Cuba City Education Association noted that “the School District of Cuba City is a prime example of how a fiscally responsible district can be punished by revenue controls.”

CCEA President Becky Cohen reminded the board of larger class sizes, the lack of an adequate computer lab at the high school, and the desperate overcrowding of the elementary school in her appeal to them on September 21.

Cohen said she was “a bit taken aback” when the board did not write its own resolution. Instead, Cohen and Superintendent Sam McGrew worked on a resolution together with Cohen doing “most of the wording” and McGrew providing “excellent suggestions” and “supporting evidence.”

The final draft of the resolution calls for “a change in the state funding of education” and the defeat of the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR). Cohen said the Qualified Economic Offer issue was not addressed in the resolution because the board members “were afraid to lose the QEO and still be restricted by revenue controls.”

“We’ll be back with a resolution on the QEO after the revenue caps are overturned,” she said.

Cohen, in her fifth year as a math and computer science teacher and technology coordinator, said things in Cuba City didn’t always go so smoothly.

“It’s been extremely rocky here until this past year,” she said, crediting McGrew for “bringing the teachers and the board together” at a time when “the union and the board didn’t trust each other.”

Becky Sitts, a sixth-year English teacher who attended last year’s WEAC Summer Academy with Cohen, affirms the need for action by the Legislature.
“Becky (Cohen) and I are young, and the prospects for young teachers in Wisconsin are not good,” she said. “We need to keep young teachers in our schools and keep our schools strong.”

Great Schools Statewide Action Plan Resource Page

Posted February 1, 2005