It’s beneficial in-and-of-itself that people should read, reflect, and commit themselves to ‘lifelong learning.’ Some years ago, the Whitewater Unified School District had a fine goal of inspiring students to become “engaged lifelong learners.” Yet in smaller communities, without the money or numbers for plentiful schooling alternatives, government taxes for a school system, establishes rules…
Education
Education, Legislature, School District
Whitewater School Board Legislative Breakfast, 2.15.21: 6 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
On Monday morning, some members of the school board and administration met online with area legislators (Reps. Vruwink & Loudenbeck, Sens. Ringhand & Nass) for an audiovisual conference in place of a traditional breakfast meeting Board members and administrators recounted, among other items, lessons from schooling during the pandemic, and serious matters present before and…
Education, Elections, School District, State Government
The Spring Primary 2021
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Yesterday’s Wisconsin Spring Primary (mid-February, windchill of about two degrees) saw local and statewide education contests. There was nothing unexpected about the results: in Whitewater more than two candidates have a good chance at one of the two available board seats, and statewide Underly and Kerr have significant backing. For Whitewater’s school board, five candidates…
Bad Ideas, Boosterism, Budget, Education, University, UW System
Tommy Thompson @ UW-Whitewater: Day Late, Dollar Short
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Former governor and current UW System president Tommy Thompson spoke at a UW-Whitewater Faculty Senate meeting on Tuesday. Thompson addressed a campus that confronts statewide funding reductions, a tuition freeze, repeated administrative scandals and failures over the last decade, a decline in the conventional student-age demographic, and competitive pressures from other universities. For all these…
Coronavirus, Education, School District
Whitewater School Board Meeting, 1.25.21: 6 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
?? Updated 1.27.21 with meeting video, embedded above. Original post follows — Monday night’s school board open session saw, among other items, language translation of the meeting, a report on special education open enrollment, mention of an initiative to restructure and expand athletic programs, mention of a recruiting effort to attract more students, review of…
City, Culture, Demographics, Economy, Education, Local Government, Politics, School District
Local 2021 Races in the Whitewater Area
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Update: this post about local politics, with an optimistic final sentence, was published before the morning and afternoon events in Washington. It has always been true – and always will be true – that what harms the country harms the city; what stains the nation stains the city. Every moment of opposition to Trump and…
Coronavirus, Education, School District
Whitewater School Board Meeting, 12.21.20: 5 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Monday night’s school board open session saw, among other items, a unanimous decision to maintain the existing close contacts and quarantine guidance, goals presentations from four administrators, a district administrator report predominantly on the results of parents’ and students’ survey preferences and class selection for the next semester, and discussion whether to have school board…
Coronavirus, Education, School District
Whitewater School Board Meeting, 11.23.20: 6 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Monday night’s school board meeting saw a majority of the board adopt a mostly virtual instructional model, to run through 1.17.21 (with exceptions for students 4K, early childhood, and perhaps other vulnerable populations). The full agenda for the meeting is available. (Items 9A, 12A, and 15F were omitted from the agenda by consent.) Updated afternoon of…
Coronavirus, Education, Laws/Regulations, School District
Whitewater School Board Meeting, 9.28.20: 6 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
Monday night saw something close to a conventional school board meeting for Whitewater – the routine oversight of a small school district, even during a pandemic. We will one day have meetings that are even closer to routine (yet with the challenges of poverty and malaise to be addressed). The full agenda for the meeting…
Coronavirus, Education, Laws/Regulations, Public Health, School District
Whitewater School Board Meeting, 9.23.20: 5 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • 5 Comments
The particular path of the pandemic – involving in Whitewater countless thousands of daily interactions between people – is understandably difficult to predict. Nine days after deciding unanimously to resume face-to-face instruction beginning 9.28.20, Whitewater’s school board decided to begin face-to-face instruction on 9.28.20 only for elementary school students, with a hybrid model of instruction…
Education, University
David Leonhardt on the ‘College Money Crisis’ — Bret Devereaux on ‘The Corner That State Universities Have Backed Themselves Into’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Well worth reading in full — In his Thursday morning newsletter, David Leonhardt of the New York Times writes of The College Money Crisis: The coronavirus has caused severe budget problems for American higher education. But many colleges’ financial troubles are much larger than the virus. They have been building for years and stem, above all,…
Coronavirus, Education, Laws/Regulations, Public Health, School District
Whitewater School Board Meeting, 9.14.20: 5 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • 7 Comments
Updated 9.16.20 with meeting video. At last night’s meeting of the Whitewater Unified School District’s board, the board voted unanimously to offer a choice of either face-to-face or virtual instruction beginning September 28th and continuing through the semester (absent any alterations in the event of significant COVID-19 infections). Parents received, last night, an email requesting…
Coronavirus, Education, Justice, Law, Laws/Regulations, Public Health, School District
Whitewater School Board Meeting, 8.24.20: 5 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
At last night’s meeting of the Whitewater Unified School District’s board, the board heard, among other items, a report on summer school, a report on the district’s use of seclusion and restraint, approved unanimously a new metric the district will use to determine its next instructional plan beginning September 28th, and held a budget hearing.…
Coronavirus, Education, Public Health, School District
Whitewater School Board Meeting, 8.17.20: 5 Points
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
At last night’s meeting of the Whitewater Unified School District’s board, the board heard (and approved on a 6-0 vote) the online platform for students choosing the virtual instruction and required staffing. (Video, 43:50.) Some students have chosen a purely virtual format, and much of the board discussion was about an all-virtual provider. The district…