Boots & Sabers

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Month: February 2020

West Bend Superintendent Heading Back to South Dakota

by | 1504, 4 Feb 2020 | , | 0 Comments

It’s almost like I was prescient when I wrote my column this weekend. Good reporting from the Washington County Insider:

February 4, 2020 – West Bend, WI – Just a day after WashingtonCountyInsider.com broke the story about West Bend School Superintendent Don Kirkegaard looking to return to his former school district and expressing interest in the interim superintendent position in the Meade School District the story got picked up by Rapid City Journal in South Dakota.

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Reporter Jim Holland writes:

STURGIS | Former Meade 46-1 superintendent of schools Don Kirkegaard has offered his services as an interim superintendent of the district, following the release of current superintendent Jeff Simmons in January.

Kirkegaard also confirmed he had contacted the Meade 46-1 Board of Education about the superintendent’s opening, but only in an interim capacity. “If you decide you’re going to do an interim (superintendent). I would be interested in being considered,” Kirkegaard said.

“If you’re going to do a full-fledged search, I will do everything I can to help you get the right candidate, but I’m not going to re-apply for the position,” he said.

Dennis Chowen, president of the Meade 46-1 Board of Education, confirmed Tuesday that Kirkegaard had contacted the board the day after a Jan. 13 meeting in which the board and Simmons announced a mutual agreement of his release from the remainder of his three-year contract.

West Bend School District needs a new superintendent

by | 0820, 4 Feb 2020 | , | 0 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Go pick up a copy! Here’s a part to whet your appetite.

The search for a new superintendent comes during a time of turmoil in the school district. After Superintendent Ted Nietzke resigned in 2016, the School Board hired a strong replacement, Erik Olsen. 2016 is also when the School Board began its turn to the left when Tiffany Larson was elected. 2017 completed the turn with the election of Joel Ongert, Nancy Justman, and Tonnie Schmidt. With a solid majority, Superintendent Olson was quickly paid a handsome severance to leave. Interim Superintendent Laura Jackson served well until Kirkegaard was hired by the board in 2018 after an expensive search.

Through these years, the school district has burned through four or five HR directors and business managers, ended innovation like the charter school, abandoned merit pay for teachers, stunted community and stakeholder communication, roiled the electorate with a poorly thought-out referendum that failed, and generally regressed from the gains made a few years ago. The results have been distressing as student performance has been stagnant and much of the community is disengaged and disinterested.

Meanwhile, the school district is facing some serious challenges. Due to a general demographic shift, enrollment is declining in the district and is projected to continue to decline for the foreseeable future. A district that once had 7,000 students will likely have less than 5,000 within this decade. This will mean substantially less money and the need to downsize personnel and facilities. The district is also facing competitive pressure with the expansion of school choice and the maturity of online and home-school learning options. These are structural pressures that are not unique to the West Bend School District. They are systemic and unavoidable.

Taking all of this into account, the next superintendent of the West Bend School District needs to be a strong, transformational, visionary change agent. It is exponentially more difficult to properly manage an organization through a contraction than through an expansion. The leader must be a phenomenal communicator who can motivate employees and build support with all of the stakeholders in the district. The West Bend School District does not need a caretaker or a toady. The district needs a strong leader to guide it through a transformation to improve educational outcomes, infuse modern innovations, and reconnect with the community while also consolidating and economizing personnel and facilities. The folks in the West Bend School District deserve a better, if smaller, school district that reflects the values of the community it serves.

To find a superintendent that matches all of those criteria will not be easy, especially given the recent turnover in the position. To do so, the West Bend School Board should follow the lead of the University of Wisconsin System and consider candidates who do not come from the government education- industrial complex. A school district superintendent must have a vision for education, but must also have skills in budgeting, contract negotiation, public relations, personnel management, finance, facilities management, organizational behavior, recruitment, marketing, legal, and more. These are skills that most seasoned, successful business executives have acquired and are not unique to people who have spent their career in education.

Iowa Caucus Results Delayed

by | 2152, 3 Feb 2020 | | 33 Comments

Hmmmm… Did they hire some officials from crucial Waukesha County?

“The integrity of the results is paramount. We have experienced a delay in the results due to quality checks and the fact that the IDP is reporting out three data sets for the first time. What we know right now is that around 25% of precincts have reported, and early data indicates turnout is on pace for 2016.”

About the three numbers: Iowa Democrats are releasing more information about caucus results than usual this year. There are three sets of numbers we’re expecting:

  • State delegates won: Each precinct sends delegates to county conventions, who then send delegates to the state convention. The “state delegate equivalents” — the number that’ll be the focus tonight — are the estimated number of delegates candidates have won to the state convention based on their results in each precinct.

  • The first alignment: The state Democratic Party will release the total number of people at each precinct that lined up with each candidate at the start of the caucuses.

  • The second alignment: Then, after realignment — the process where those who fall short of 15% are eliminated, with their supporters either choosing a different candidate to back or going home — the state party will release those raw vote totals as well.

West Bend Teacher Wins Teacher of the Year from VFW

by | 2059, 3 Feb 2020 | , | 0 Comments

Mindel’s work to honor veterans is truly wonderful. This is well deserved. Congrats.

Honoring veterans is one of the things that Scott Mindel has chosen to spend much of his time doing. It was just a matter of time before he received the recognition he deserves.

Mindel, a West Bend East High School social studies teacher, was named teacher of the year for the state of Wisconsin by the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Saturday. He received the award in Green Bay due to the amount of time that he has spent recognizing local veterans throughout the years. Tonight, at the school board meeting, time has been set aside for John Kleinmaus of the VFW Post 1393 in West Bend to recognize Mindel for his work and award him with the District 6 level of the award.

Most WBHS students will remember the Veterans Day assembly that Mindel organized last November. While this is the primary reason that Mindel was nominated for teacher of the year, there are many other things that Mindel has accomplished that went into him receiving this award.

“The award is not just for that, it’s a combination of things starting in 2015, with the West Bend High School veterans tribute video that plays downstairs in the main hallway,” Mindel said when asked what the award is for. “It’s for what happened on November 1st, it’s for things that I have done for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July parade, it’s for the national Signing Day that we have for students that are going into the military. So, it’s a combination of things that have happened since 2015.”

Toxic DNC Host Committee Purged of Leaders

by | 2044, 3 Feb 2020 | | 5 Comments

Yikes.

In interviews with the Journal Sentinel over the weekend, two experienced political hands who have worked with the host committee described it as having a toxic culture rife with power struggles, backbiting and mismanagement.

They accused the top two officials, Gilbert and Alonso, of giving contracts to their friends in New Jersey, calling meetings and then failing to attend them and being more focused on accumulating power than promoting Milwaukee.

A New Jersey firm with strong ties to the New Jersey Democratic Party, for instance, developed the website for the host committee and manages its email platform. Both Gilbert and Alonso are top-ranking Democratic operatives in that state.

These assertions come at the same time that Alonso is being accused in his home state of New Jersey of shaking down campaign contributors for his personal consulting business.

“It’s one of the worst — if not the worst — I have worked on,” the first official said of the host committee.

The second official said they would become sick to their stomach when working with the host committee, the first time they experienced a toxic work environment, despite working on numerous campaigns. “You know it when you see it, when you feel it,” the second official said.

HIV Vaccine Trial Fails

by | 2028, 3 Feb 2020 | | 0 Comments

That’s a shame.

Hopes have been dashed an experimental vaccine could protect people against HIV, the virus that causes Aids.

The National Institutes of Health has stopped its HVTN 702 trial, of more than 5,000 people in South Africa, as it found the jab did not prevent HIV.

Experts expressed “deep disappointment” but added the search for a preventive HIV vaccine must continue.

Such vaccines do not contain HIV and therefore do not pose any danger of giving HIV to an individual.

Letter to the Editor – Jody Geenen

by | 0759, 3 Feb 2020 | , | 0 Comments

Here is a letter from West Bend School Board candidate Jody Geenen

The referendum is back!  As a candidate for the West Bend School Board in April, I’ve paid particular attention to the January meetings. The groupthink of the current board appear to promise a more elaborate and expensive referendum for November than was voted down last April.  Instead of one new school plus repairs, there will likely be two new schools, an addition to Green Tree, plus repairs.

Part of the problem, I wondered was why, after hearing all of the pros on Jackson needing it’s very own elementary school situated next to the Boys & Girls Club, we didn’t have anyone lined up to give the cons so there could be a balanced discussion. After all, none of the schools in West Bend are located near the Boys & Girls Club, yet students manage to get there.  In addition, we had a task force months ago that developed an alternative plan that was viable, sensible, and more affordable. Shouldn’t someone from that committee have been given the floor to explain why that plan might be better than the one in the works?

As the only candidate running against the incumbents for school board on April 7, I would like to listen to all options side-by-side in order to formulate what works best for ALL stakeholders in our school district, including the taxpayer. Yes, it does appear that Jackson has the most potential for residential growth, but some of those properties are actually in the Germantown School District. Not only can we contribute declining enrollment to students attending secondary school in Germantown or Slinger, but we are also competing against private schools, home school and virtual school that are becoming more and more popular with each passing year. Please vote for Common Sense on April 7; please vote for me.

Jody Geenen – Candidate for West Bend School Board

Super Bowl Prediction

by | 1704, 2 Feb 2020 | | 12 Comments

Anyone care to make a prediction?

Here’s a little Boots & Sabers history for you… back when Janet Jackson had her wardrobe malfunction during halftime of the Super Bowl, I blogged about it. The incoming traffic crashed the blog for almost a week.

Brexit. Done.

by | 1016, 1 Feb 2020 | | 1 Comment

For all of the controversy this has roiled over the past few years, it seems almost anticlimactic today.

The UK officially left the European Union on Friday at 23:00 GMT after 47 years of membership, and more than three years after it voted to do so in a referendum.

Brexit parties were held in some pubs and social clubs as well as in London’s Parliament Square, as the country counted down to its official departure.

In a message released on social media an hour before the UK left, Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to bring the country together and “take us forward”.

“For many people this is an astonishing moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come,” he said. “And there are many of course who feel a sense of anxiety and loss.”

I forget… did liberals say that this would cause World War III or a global economic collapse? I can’t remember.

West Bend’s School Superintendent Resigns

by | 0959, 1 Feb 2020 | | 34 Comments

Sigh… here we go again. What is this? Four superintendents in the last five years?

WEST BEND — West Bend School District Superintendent Don Kirkegaard is leaving his position at the end of the school year and returning to his home state of South Dakota. He joined the district in July 2018 after 23 years of experience in education, including serving as secretary of education for South Dakota.

Kirkegaard said while he enjoys his current position, moving back home is the best decision for himself and his wife.

“This is just a chance to be back in the home we built brand new a few years ago and to be by family and friends,” he said. There is much to be missed, he said, and he will keep with him the memories and lessons.

Frankly, I can’t blame him. Working for this school board would be torture. On the other hand, it sure seems like he never had both feet in Wisconsin. He didn’t sell his house in South Dakota? He didn’t know when he took the job 18 months ago that he’d be 850 miles from the rest of his family? My sense is that he was brought in to shepherd the passage of the referendum and building program. When that was rejected, it was time to leave.

CORRECTION: This will actually be the 5th superintendent in four years.

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