Teachers are mad. Water is wet. I wish they got this angry about the porn in the curriculum.

According to the district, the changes would lead to lower deductibles and lower out-of-pocket maximums, and employees will have two plans to choose from and three family sizes to choose from for the plans. There will be additional incentives for the second plan and minimal employee premium increases from 2023.

 

One reason for dropping the current HRA model was that the district had to reserve an increasing amount of dollars each year due to rollovers, which led to less dollars being available for wage increases. Another was that not every employee used it the same and received the same benefit from it.

 

However, during the School Board meeting on Monday, teachers spoke out against the plan, with some saying they had been promised the HRA benefit as a form of compensation in addition to their salaries.

 

“I am concerned about the district’s decision to take HRA dollars away from teachers who had been promised this money as part of their compensation,” said Shelly Krueger, a teacher in the district for 32 years. “… I urge the school board and the district administration to reconsider its decision to take HRA money away from our teachers, otherwise future promises may sound empty.”

 

“It was understood that one of the possibilities in new health insurance plans meant that the HRA may be discontinued. It was not, however, made clear until the July 10th board meeting that teachers that have banked their HRA money, me as one of them, which was given to them as part of their compensation, would have that money taken away from them by the district without having any additional compensation in return,” said teacher Hailey Dougherty. “There are teachers with thousands of dollars saved in their accounts, and taking away that money is robbing teachers of their overall compensation. I strongly encourage the board to speak with HR and find a solution to allow teachers to use this money that has been earned.”

Here’s the rub:

an HSA works more like a bank account that the employee can put money into before it is taxed, whereas an HRA is an employer-funded plan.

From the Washington County Insider.

Police Chief Tim Dehring confirmed via email an incident occurred Monday, February 21, 2022; a pair of 11-year-old students were involved. The incident reportedly happened on school bus No. 128 that carried students from Silverbrook Intermediate School.

 

One of the students reportedly suffered a concussion.

 

That same Monday, Feb. 21, 2022, parents from the district spoke before the West Bend School Board. Parents were upset about a different bullying incident involving a 14-year-old boy and a 10-year-old boy.

 

According to parent the 14-year-old was bit; administration later watched a video with the parent which showed the younger child attacking the older child with a sharp stick. The parent’s testimony is below.

 

 

The parent of the boy who was attacked was particularly upset she had not been contacted about the incident by the school district.

The issue here is not really that kids are occasionally violent and there are some kids who are chronically violent. This has always been true. It is also more prevalent now as kids return from the isolation of virtual learning to the stressful, complicated, agonizing social situations of school.

The issue here is that the administration and the school board have not responded well to the incidents. They have not notified parents of the kids impacted. They have not taken action against the offenders to protect other kids. They have been dismissive and haughty toward parents who ask questions. They appear more interested in depressing violence statistics than they are in protecting the victims or getting the offenders help – they are kids, after all. No wonder parents are getting frustrated.

This letter to the editor by Carol Heger takes us back a bit to illustrate the yawning gap between the rhetoric of the current board members and their actions. The spending doesn’t have anything to do with education. It has to do with supporting a political constituency with your money.

On Monday night, Sept. 27th, the West Bend School District (WBSD) held its annual meeting. Once again, the so-called, self-identified “conservative” school board members are proposing to raise the tax levy. This will be the third year in a row, if this resolution is approved, that the school board has increased the tax levy. In the 2019-20 school year, it was raised 7.15%, in 2020-21 it was raised 6.21%, and now the board is proposing a 7.25% increase.

 

In addition, the annual meeting revealed that the district’s gross total expenditures proposed for the 2021-22 school year are to increase 7.12% from $98,504,627 to $103,376,400.  This increase in spending is happening when enrollment has declined about 200 students from 6,034 last year to an estimated 5,824 this school year.  (In the last 10 years, the district has lost about 1,000 students.)  This increase in spending and the property tax increase are happening when the schools all over Wisconsin are flush with federal stimulus funding.

Read the whole thing.

I have been receiving a National Geographic every month for my entire life. It is a wonderful publication with magnificent pictures and some very educational content. They have also been hard core wacky environmentalists for more than a decade. I can tell you exactly what is in this curriculum and it is far from a balanced presentation of facts.

February 22, 2021 – West Bend, WI – Proposed curriculum for 6th graders in the West Bend School District will be available for review this week, starting February 22 – February 26.

The proposed curriculum is published by National Geographic. There are 12 books in the series including, (listed in alphabetical order):

 

“Climate Change”; “Energy Resources”; “Food Supply”; “Globalism”; “Habitat Preservation”; “Health”; “Human Rights”; “Migration”; “Pollution”; “Population Growth”; “Standard of Living”; and “Water Resources.”

Click HERE to review what is presented in a brief format on the social studies segment from National Geographic.

Excellent.

WEST BEND — The West Bend School District Board of Education shared their plan for the 2020-21 school year with district families and community members on Monday.

[…]

The plan details three educational options for students: fulltime in-person learning, full-time virtual learning through the West Bend Virtual Academy and a hybrid education model combining both in-person and virtual learning.

[…]

Of the survey participants who responded to the question, 3,125 families (69 percent) preferred in-person instruction, 482 families (11 percent) preferred enrolling in WBVA and 850 families (19 percent) preferred the hybrid model.

88% was some form of in-person instruction with 69% wanting normal education – with mitigation, of course.

On Wednesday, the Common Sense Citizens of Washington County hosted West Bend Superintendent Jennifer Wimmer. She spent almost two hours answering questions about everything from the district’s potential opening plan to social justice to curriculum to facilities to budget. She was impressive in how she handled some really tough questions. From my notes:

• The district is doing a survey about what people want for reopening. Since Kewaskum and Slinger have already done a survey, they don’t expect the results to be that different.
• The intent and hope is to open for full-time, in-person, instruction, but do a lot to mitigate disease spread and provide alternative options for people who are uncomfortable with in-person instruction. Interestingly, they are also talking to a district in Australia, that has been open for months, to see how they are doing it.
• When asked about the budget, she was pretty adamant that they had to work within the budget they had. She expressed some reluctance to ask the public for more money in he current economic climate. She also said that they are forecasting declining revenues for years to come and they would just have to work with it.
• She was asked about closing an elementary school and she thought that it would be necessary. She also mentioned moving the district offices into a school somewhere.
• Back to an opening plan, she was asked about whether teachers were afraid to go back to work and if that would prevent opening. She said, “fear is not a valid reason to not come to work.” Yes.
• She was also asked about her thoughts about Act 10. She is working on her doctorate and her area of study is superintending post Act 10.

Overall, I was favorably impressed. The West Bend School District may be on the upswing.