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Daily Bread for 3.21.25: Whitewater Superintendent Accepts Position at Pennsylvania School District

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Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 54. Sunrise is 6:55 and sunset is 7:08, for 12 hours, 13 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 60.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1965,  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leads 3,200 people on the start of the third phase of the successful civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.

On Wednesday evening, this libertarian blogger posted Manheim Township School Board to Vote on Dr. Caroline Pate-Hefty as Next Superintendent. See also Ashley Stalnecker, Manheim Township school board to vote on new superintendent Thursday, Lancaster Online, March 18, 2025.

Last evening, that Pennsylvania school district, located outside Lancaster, Pennsylvania, issued a statement after accepting Caroline Pate-Hefty as their next superintendent.

That full statement appears below:

Manheim Township School District Announces Dr. Caroline Pate-Hefty as New Superintendent 

Lancaster, PA – The Manheim Township School District (MTSD) Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Caroline Pate-Hefty as the district’s next Superintendent of Schools, effective July 1, 2025. The Board officially approved her appointment during its regular meeting on March 20, 2025. Dr. Pate-Hefty will lead MTSD under a five-year contract, ensuring continuity and stability as the district continues its commitment to academic excellence and student success. 

The Board’s decision follows an extensive search and selection process that engaged staff, students, parents and guardians, and community members in identifying the qualities most essential in the district’s next leader. 

Dr. Pate-Hefty brings a wealth of experience in educational leadership, having served as Superintendent of the Whitewater Unified School District (WUSD) in Wisconsin for the past five years. During her tenure, she successfully expanded programming for English Language Learners and improved student achievement in reading and math, ensuring all students received the highest quality education. 

Prior to her time at WUSD, Dr. Pate-Hefty served as Executive Director of Student Services in District #89 in Chicago, where she spearheaded legislation to reintegrate 125 students with disabilities into their home schools, ensuring the most inclusive setting. This initiative not only enhanced educational opportunities for students but also resulted in significant cost savings for the district. She was also part of the leadership team that established the Washington Dual Language Academy, which was later recognized as a “commendable school” by the state of Illinois. 

 Dr. Pate-Hefty holds a Doctor of Education degree from National Louis University of Chicago, a Master of Educational Leadership from Concordia University, and a Bachelor of Special Education degree from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater. She will be relocating to Manheim Township with her husband and two daughters and looks forward to being closer to her oldest son, who will be attending the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall of 2025. 

“I’m truly honored to accept the role of superintendent in Manheim Township,” said Dr. Pate-Hefty. “My family and I are excited to join this incredible community—and we can’t wait to become proud Blue Streaks! Together, we will build on the district’s strong tradition of excellence and remain committed to the achievement of each individual’s potential by providing the opportunities, support, and inspiration every learner deserves!” 

“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Pate-Hefty as the next Superintendent of Manheim Township School District,” said Ms. Sara Woodbury, President of the MTSD Board of School Directors.  “Dr. Pate-Hefty is an experienced, data-driven, and strategic superintendent who leads with empathy.  Her proven track record of serving all students and her commitment to excellence make her the right leader for our district.  We are confident that under her guidance, MTSD will continue to thrive and will innovate in ways that challenge and nurture all of our students for success.”

The MTSD Board of School Directors expresses its gratitude to all those who participated in the search process and looks forward to welcoming Dr. Pate-Hefty into the Blue Streaks community.

A reminder to those who will remain in Whitewater, in self-stated public service to the community — Stewart Brand’s famous observation about information is still true:

On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information [almost] wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

Choose free.

School District

Manheim Township School Board to Vote on Dr. Caroline Pate-Hefty as Next Superintendent

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Lancaster Online reports that the Manheim Township School Board will vote on the appointment of Dr. Caroline Pate-Hefty as its next superintendent on Thursday, 3.20.25. See Ashley Stalnecker, Manheim Township school board to vote on new superintendent Thursday, Lancaster Online, March 18, 2025. See also Manheim Township School District, Agenda, Item 8 B, March 20,…

City, Daily Bread, Education, Elections, Local Government, School District, State Government, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 1.9.25: For Elections, More Candidates Are Better

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Good morning.

Thursday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 27. Sunrise is 7:24 and sunset is 4:39, for 9 hours, 15 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 78.5 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Public Arts Commission meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1945, the Sixth United States Army begins the invasion of Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines.

Statewide, there will be a February primary election for Wisconsin’s Superintendent of Public Instruction. In this statewide race, it’s not merely contested but contested in a way that requires a primary election:

Three candidates have filed nomination papers for state Superintendent of Public Instruction, which means there will be a primary election next month for Wisconsin’s top education post.

State Superintendent Jill Underly has two challengers: Sauk Prairie School District Superintendent Jeff Wright, and Brittany Kinser, a former special education teacher and reading advocate.

The primary will be held Feb. 18 with the top two candidates facing each other in the nonpartisan election on April 1.

See Corrinne Hess, State Superintendent Jill Underly will face primary challenge in February, Wisconsin Public Radio, January 8, 2025.

Locally, we’ll have, it seems, contested races for the Whitewater Unified School District Board and one of our city’s assembly districts before the voters in April. That’s all to the good: voters will be able to see differences between candidates.

Choice is preferable.

Entering a dragon’s lair:

City, Daily Bread, Humor, School District

Daily Bread for 10.6.24: Scenes Clever, Dull, and Clever

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Good morning.

Sunday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 6:58, and sunset is 6:26, for 11 hours, 28 minutes of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent, with 12.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Run for Trey 5K Fun Run takes place today (registration open at 8 AM, race at 10 AM, at Treyton’s Field of Dreams, 504 W Starin Road in Whitewater.

On this day in 2010, Instagram, a mainstream photo-sharing application, launches.

Consider three vignettes on humor: a prank, a response to it, and a contemporary rendition of puns. These vignettes are respectively clever, dull, and clever.

The Prank: Students have for generations strewn toilet paper into trees. The prank is part of Americana. It’s time-honored and harmless. One such TP mission took place recently on the grounds of Whitewater High School.

Clever, and in keeping with American culture.

The Response: Whitewater’s high-school principal and athletic director rode around on a golf cart, with a mechanical claw, picking up pieces of toilet paper, and later posing for photographs.

There’s a backstory to the recent Whitewater incident. This same principal, Brent Mansky, only a year ago was accused in his hometown of Williams Bay of pursuing and tacking a teenager for trying to place toilet paper on Mansky’s house1.

Whitewater Principal Mansky, after the recent Whitewater High toilet papering, gave a statement to the Banner, a publication of the Whitewater Community Foundation:

Principal Brent Mansky and Athletic Director Justin Crandall displayed no irritation while cruising the campus in a golf cart to retrieve paper from the lawn on Friday afternoon. “They have to learn to do it better,” Mansky told The Banner. Noting how the perpetrators seemed to hit each tree only once, he continued, “Next year we’re going to make it into a competition between the classes; each grade will be assigned a section. They’ll have to clean up what’s on the lawn by Friday evening.”

Consider that statement, in light of Mansky’s past overwrought and under-thought conduct in Williams Bay. His present remarks are humorless and, truly, backwards. Humor, if any at all, after his past conduct should have been contrite and self-effacing (well, I had that coming, etc.) Instead, Manksy’s reply brittlely repeats part of his past mistake: a false projection of strength (“they have to learn to do it better”) like the false strength of turning off his yard camera while waiting for minor children to come into his yard.

His humor’s backwards because his perspective is backwards.

The Banner‘s subject line, “WHS Principal Takes Homecoming TP in Stride: “They have to learn how to do it better” is obtuse. That’s not taking this harmless prank in stride. If Mansky took it in stride, he wouldn’t be projecting demands for more onto his pranksters. He would be self-deprecating. More likely: this is an embarrassed man who found a soft-touch staff member at the Banner to salve his embarrassment.

Here’s a saying that describes this local effort: can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It’s a dull and humorless effort.

A Contemporary Rendition of Puns. I’ll offer a palate cleanser by way of a truly humorous rendition of old-school puns2. I’m not much for puns, yet listen to a talented Instagrammer, contemporary in style and delivery, make something old vibrant again:


Now that’s clever3: someone of a new generation (about the age of my daughter-in-law, I’d guess), through fashion and manner, transforms the old into the new (and, I’d say, even better than before).

Delightful.

  1. Rachael Perry of WKOW reported after the incident that Bodycam video released after Whitewater principal accused of tackling teen: “”When they came up through my property they started chucking the f toilet paper in my yard,” Mansky said. “I got one kid,” he told the officer. The officer asked what Mansky meant by that, and he replied “I got his hoodie from him.” Mansky later admits to the officer that he watched as the teens were TP-ing area houses and waited for them to approach his. He said he ran after them and tackled one to the ground. That’s when he explained he got the sweatshirt from the teen. The officer asked Mansky if his cameras caught the teens on video. He replied, “I turned them off so they wouldn’t get activated when those little d*** heads came rolling through”….One teen told officers Mansky tackled him to the ground. “He gets me into the headlock, and then I slip again,” the teen said. He claims Mansky stood over him before grabbing him by the neck. “He picked me up from my neck and started strangling me,” he said.” ↩︎
  2. Serendipity and Synchronicity are with me: Although it’s not my normal fare of cat & nature accounts, the Instragram algorithm recommended this account to me only a few days ago. ↩︎
  3. The account’s tagline is invitingly self-aware: “If you don’t roll your eyes, what are we even doing here?” ↩︎

Boosterism, Catspaw, City, Conflicts of Interest, Daily Bread, Ethics, Low Standards, Misplaced Priorities, School District, Self-Dealing, Special Interests, Speech & Debate, Toxic Positivity, Tragic Optimism, Willful Ignorance, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 5.8.24: The Special-Interest Hierarchy of a Small Town (Adjacent Support)

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 75. Sunrise is 5:38 and sunset 8:04 for 14h 26m 27s of daytime. The moon is new with 0.2 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1877, at Gilmore’s Gardens in New York City, the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show opens.

In September, I wrote of The Special-Interest Hierarchy of a Small Town:

In a small town, and perhaps elsewhere, there are four tiers within a special-interest hierarchy: principals, operatives, catspaws, and residents. Only the first three serve, reliably, the special interest; the fourth is a large group of unaffiliated people that the special interests must persuade or dissuade repeatedly. 

A special-interest faction, or in the case of the Whitewater Schools an unresponsive board and superintendent, depends on the reliable service of the first three groups (principals, operatives, and catspaws). Some residents, however, may be counted on now and again to support special-interest or insider-group actions. These kinds of residents offer hit-or-miss support. I’ll list a few of them, readily recognizable in Whitewater and towns across the world.

Boosterism and Toxic Positivity. There are always a few residents who feel that criticism is a crime, an offense against man and God, and so must not be tolerated. The boosters feel that accentuating the positive, and burying the negative, is a legitimate (indeed necessary) pursuit. You’ll see them patrol social media looking to rebuke others who offer sincere criticism.

The delusional are sufferers of toxic positivity; the most acute cases are simply lickspittles.

Many of these types are a few moments away from screaming ‘love it or leave it.’ All of those who would do so are ignorant of their own country’s proud history of robust criticism. Even the most degraded hovel in medieval Europe, flea and lice-infested, had apologists of someone’s special schemes. Centuries later, in an America that is a world-historical state, there are still a few locals who live as though American liberties meant nothing, carrying on as though vulgar locals in a rat-dominated hamlet of 1300s Bavaria.

The indictment and conviction of the boosters: narrow of mind and small of heart.

These types, however, are useful as apologists and enforcers of special-interest schemes.

(A better outlook: Tragic Optimism as an Alternative to Toxic Positivity.)

The Concerned Passerby. When faced with a challenge to their position, special interest men cannot always count on themselves as principals, or their operatives and reliable catspaws. Cronyism and entitlement do not run themselves! They’ll look around, and find someone who seems unaffiliated, but is willing to do their work now and again. Although not reliable all the time, these types can be persuaded for a specific task.

They’ll seem like concerned passersby, simply trying to help, but no! They’re truly working to advance a special-interest or closed-government perspective. They’re harder to spot than boosters, sufferers of toxic positivity, or lickspittles, but still identifiable to ordinary residents. They’ll show up and profess simple concern, as ‘adults in the room,’ but after listening to them, it’s clear they’re rationalizing a nefarious cause (e.g., advancing a self-dealer’s plan, or shutting down a discussion).

Scoundrels. Special-interest men want to win, and that means bending public policy to their own ends. Closed-government types want to control public policy without public consent. In both cases, they pervert public life. They create a corrupted, degenerate form of government.

When faced with a difficult challenge, and when smearing challengers is too much even for principals, operatives, and catspaws, they’ll turn to scoundrels. The Oxford American Dictionary offers a plentiful list of synonyms that describe the type (e.g., rogue, rascal, good-for-nothing, reprobate, unprincipled person; cheat, swindler, fraudster, trickster, charlatan; informal villain, beast, son of a bitch, SOB, rat, louse, cur, hound, skunk, heel, snake, snake in the grass, wretch, scumbag, bad egg, stinker).

Scoundrels will say anything to aid a special-interest or closed-government cause, while the principals, operatives, and catspaws delight from a distance. (These main types know what’s happening, hoping it will benefit them, yet hoping it won’t be identified back to them.)

In all of this, however, the overwhelming majority of ordinary residents are normal & well-adjusted. It’s a only few, entitled and avaricious, or entitled and autocratic, who beset and bedevil a community.

NASA Simulation’s Plunge Into the Whitewater School District’s Central Office a Black Hole:

City, Daily Bread, Open Government, School District, Speech & Debate

Daily Bread for 4.8.24: The Practical Limits of Closed-Session Meetings in Whitewater

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Good morning.

Monday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 64. Sunrise is 6:22 and sunset 7:30 for 13h 08m 9s of daytime. The moon is new with .1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Unified School District holds an electoral canvass at 4:30 PM. Whitewater’s Planning Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1959, a team of computer manufacturers, users, and university people led by Grace Hopper meets to discuss the creation of a new programming language that would be called COBOL.

For today, a practical consideration of closed-session meetings in Whitewater. (This leaves aside for now the role of closed sessions as a matter of law. That’s a topic for another time.)

There are two practical reasons to have a closed session: for elected or appointed officeholders (1) to conceal permanently information from public or (2) to conceal information temporarily while discussing action that may become public later.

Both cases have obvious practical limits, for the same reason: as the community is factionalized, and goverment in Whitewater often lacks a strong public consensus, the officials’ closed sessions will lack broad support (or even respect).

In a community where residents are skeptical of officials’ motives, let’s-go-to-closed session looks like officials’ self-protective action. (‘We’re doing it for the community’ isn’t often compelling; ‘we have the right to do it’ falls flat without community support.)

In a community where residents are skeptical (or unaware) of officials’ motives, major announcements upon returning to open session turn skepticism into cyncism. For both the city since last summer, and the district in December, major discussions in closed session have had almost no prior public foundation by those public boards. (Residents, yes, but not boardmembers themselves.) Boardmembers and councilmembers cannot expect that their concerns will resonate with residents unless those officials, themselves,  build a compelling public case, open session after open session.

Coming out of closed session with an announcment without building a predicate foundation with the commmunity makes only a faint sound. It doesn’t matter how much some officials think of themselves (and oh, brother, do some of them think highly of themselves) most residents aren’t impressed. A generation ago more residents might have been deferential to officials’ claims. That was then, this is now.

For better or worse, benefit of the doubt doesn’t appertain in Whitewater’s politics. Elected or appointed officials looking for that benefit will not find it here.

If, for example, someone is sitting in her district office wondering why others aren’t persuaded (let alone obedient!), the answer will be found by looking first to herself. One won’t be persuaded by detailed arguments someone else won’t make, or thoughtful words someone else won’t speak.

If, for example, a long effort council is mostly a closed-session effort, then the lack of a sequential public explanation leaves the closed effort as little more than an exercise in private catharsis.

No one is required to come to table and make a public case. Those who are not at table, however, cannot expect to be among those who enjoy the meal.

2024 solar eclipse – Not in the path of totality? NASA’s tips:

City, Daily Bread, Elections, School District

Daily Bread for 4.3.24: The Easily Predictable, Unsurprising Local Election Results for Whitewater

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be snowy with a high of 37. Sunrise is 6:30 and sunset 7:24 for 12h 53m 52s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 35 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Lakes Advisory Committee meets at 4 PM and the Landmarks Commission meets at 6 PM.

On this day in 1865, Confederate soldiers abandoning Richmond accidentally kill several people and burn down much of the city:

After a long siege, Grant captured Petersburg and Richmond in early April 1865. As the fall of Petersburg became imminent, on Evacuation Sunday (April 2), President Davis, his Cabinet, and the Confederate defenders abandoned Richmond and fled south on the last open railroad line, the Richmond and Danville.

The retreating soldiers were under orders to set fire to bridges, and supply warehouses as they left. This included exploding the Powder Magazine in the early AM of April 3, at the Shockoe Hill Burying Ground, where the Alms-house was also located. The explosion killed several of the paupers who were being housed in a temporary Alms-house, and a sleeping person on 2nd St. The concussion shattered windows all over the city.[8] The fire in the largely abandoned city spread out of control, and large parts of Richmond were destroyed, reaching to the very edge of Capitol Square mostly unchecked. The conflagration was not completely extinguished until the mayor and other civilians went to the Union lines east of Richmond on New Market Road (now State Route 5) and surrendered the city the next day.

Yesterday’s Spring General Election in Whitewater, for local races in the city and school district, ended predictably. 

In races for the Whitewater Common Council, Greg Majkrzak won an at-large seat over Keith Staebler (786 to 532 votes), Brian Schanen was elected unopposed in the city’s 4th District (359 votes), and Orin Smith was elected unopposed in the city’s 2nd District (63 votes). These are all unofficial (yet decisive) totals.  

In the race for two seats on the Whitewater Unified School District Board to elect two boardmembers, the results were similarly clear (and predictable): Maryann Zimmerman received 1636 votes, Jeff Tortomasi 1562, and Larry Kachel (on the ballot but not seeking re-election) received 919.

While I think Zimmerman would have had a good chance of re-election in any event, various claims and actions against her (a self-injurious cease-and-desist demand from the district superintendent or others’ accusations against her that were irrelevant to her voting record) didn’t prevent Zimmerman from becoming the top vote-getter in all three counties of the district.

Honest to goodness: it’s closer to the truth to say that a few current & former officeholders proved — not for the first time — that it is they who don’t know what they’re doing. 

Update, Wednesday morning: Boardmember Zimmerman’s concerns could (and should) have been addressed promptly and openly between December 2023 and January 2024. The failure to do so, and the serial mistakes this board president, superintendent, and sundry others made could have been avoided.  Secretive, yes. Inept, most definitely. 

Moment huge earthquake strikes captured on cameras across Taiwan:

City, Daily Bread, Education, Excuses and Rationalizations, Freedom of Speech, Open Government, Reasoning, School District

Daily Bread for 3.27.24: “Nice Person, But…”

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Good morning.

Wednesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 39. Sunrise is 6:42 and sunset 7:16 for 12h 33m 37s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 95.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1975, construction of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System begins.

Yesterday’s post, These Aren’t the MAGA Claims You Were Looking For,  seemed clear to me. While opinions on local issues differ, residents should be able to discern plainly-stated views. (Opinions in Whitewater — and even basic accounts of events — vary among residents now more than at any time since FREE WHITEWATER began publication in 2007. See Rashomon-upon-Cravath.) 

Of that post, summarized:

(1) The post was about open government1.

(2) A more detailed series on the district and proposals to improve governance can wait until after the election.

(3) Too many people in this town have election fever, and it’s left them dehydrated and decomposed. Their malady is not mine.

(4) The claims and proposals that boardmember (and whistleblower) Maryann Zimmerman has made since December are not conservative populist claims. They are claims of no single ideology or partisan view.

(5) I’ve never met Mrs. Zimmerman and it’s not as though we’re in a knitting club together2.

(6) The current board president has done no better than to beg off every question with the false, self-protective claim that he cannot speak for legal reasons and the district has a superintendent who not only won’t speak but has tried to prevent others from speaking.

That’s yesterday’s post in a nutshell. 

And yet, and yet, a community leader wrote me last night to explain to me that, thirteen months ago, Mrs. Zimmerman voted not to deny a petition to alter district boundaries regarding a taxed property, concluding from her vote that Mrs. Zimerman was a “[n]ice person, but she does not know what she is doing.” (I responded bluntly via email.)

This emailer’s claim might as well have been a parody of whataboutism3.

The overall policy competency of this boardmember wasn’t the point of my post.  (It’s evident that she’s as capable as others on the board. Practically, whether intentional or not, this boardmember alone has been able to knock the board president and the district administration back on their heels. It’s much easier to paint a single boardmember as ignorant than it is to admit — or perhaps grasp — that official responses to that boardmember have been strategically and tactically inept. That’s not the fault of students, parents, or residents. It’s the responsibility of boardmembers and administrators who’ve exacerbated the issue through their own responses.)  

A tax issue from thirteen months ago matters not at all now. The insular frustration that’s come to district officials from more recent events, the excuse-making and rationalization of fumbled and self-injurious responses, evidently grips them.

What matters most is a better path than the one that overreaching and underthinking officials have taken. 

Other district officials made that mess.

Nice people, but they do not know what they’re doing.

Belgian farmers spray manure towards police who respond with water cannon4:

1. Of limited, responsible, open government with individual rights, of progressive theology through traditional liturgy, and of cats, this libertarian blogger is, it happens, a true believer.

2. It’s not as though Boardmember Zimmerman and I are in a knitting club together. I don’t knit, and have no idea if she does. Nonetheless, all my best to the knitters of Whitewater and the sheep who’ve supplied their yarn. I have only love in my bleeding-libertarian heart for all of them.

3. The emailer pointed me to the minutes of the year-ago discussion, but in any event, the minutes are not the first place to look. A recording of the meeting would be the first, best place to look. Again and again: no record like a recording. After reviewing the recording, it seems to me that there were issues that no one considered fully. It certainly wasn’t obvious — except to those of narrow and motivated reasoning — that there was one only way to vote on items. 

4. Does anyone know if some of these district officials have visited a Belgian farm lately?

Conservative Populism, Daily Bread, Education, Freedom of Speech, Never Trump, Reasoning, School District, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.26.24: These Aren’t the MAGA Claims You Were Looking For

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Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 52. Sunrise is 6:44 and sunset 7:15 for 12h 30m 43s of daytime. The moon is a waning gibbous with 98.6 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

Whitewater’s Finance Committee meets at 5 PM.

On this day in 1812, a political cartoon in the Boston-Gazette coins the term “gerrymander” to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win reelection.

A brief post today, about Boardmember Maryann Zimmerman to follow yesterday’s post about conservative populism more generally. (A more detailed series on the district and proposals to improve governance can wait until after the election. Too many people in this town have election fever, and it’s left them dehydrated and decomposed. Their malady is not mine.)

Anyone who has visited this site knows that this bleeding-heart libertarian blogger is, and always will be, an opponent of conservative populism, MAGA, Trumpism, or whatever one calls that ideology. Never Trump before Never Trump, so to speak. See yesterday’s example Rep. Mike Gallagher Knows that MAGA Will Be Someone Else’s Headache Soon.

I am also someone whose family, teachers, and professors did their level best to inspire in me a respect for principle, reasoning, and tradition (in that order). Any success that this pupil has had in that regard owes only to them; they had poor clay with which to work. All their effort on my behalf, over so many years, leads me now and again to see something clearly.

And this is one of those times: the claims and proposals that boardmember (and whistleblower) Maryann Zimmerman has made since December are not conservative populist claims. They are claims of no single ideology or partisan view.  Mrs. Zimmerman may hold, as I think she does, conservative populist views. To the extent that she holds those views — but only to the extent that she holds those views — we would find ourselves in disagreement.

Some of her ardent supporters most assuredly hold conservative populist views. To the extent that they hold those views — but only to the extent that they hold those views — we would find ourselves in disagreement.

If in this beautiful city, the answer to Mrs. Zimmerman’s nonpartisan concerns and proposals is an answer directed in opposition to conservative populism, then that answer is misdirected, to the degradation of scholastic standards.  

It’s that simple.

I’ve never met Mrs. Zimmerman; we may never meet.  One needn’t have met her to grasp that she is willing to speak and write in support of her views when, by striking contrast, the current board president has done no better than to beg off every question with the false, self-protective claim that he cannot speak for legal reasons. (Those who know the law know that those assertions are not merely false but risibly self-serving.)

The district has a superintendent who not only won’t speak but has tried to prevent others from speaking. In Maryann Zimmerman’s recent claims, and in her composed defense of them, there’s no trace of partisan ideology. She’s been admirably clear and steady. Others want to see what’s not there; they are looking into an empty room.

These aren’t the MAGA claims they were looking for.

Total Solar Eclipse 2024 explained. Date, maps, times and more:

The United States, Mexico and Canada will experience a total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024. Space.com’s Brett Tingley explains what you can expect. Total solar eclipse 2024: Everything you need to know: https://www.space.com/41552-total-sol…

WARNING: People should always use protective solar eclipse eyewear when viewing a solar eclipse.

Credit: Space.com | NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, GreatAmericanEclipse.com 

City, Daily Bread, Education, Freedom of Speech, School District, Speech & Debate, Tragic Optimism

Daily Bread for 3.19.24: Better Days for the Whitewater Schools

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 Good morning.

Tuesday in Whitewater will be windy with a high of 53. Sunrise is 6:57 and sunset 7:07 for 12h 10m 16s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 73.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

The Whitewater Common Council meets tonight at 6:30 PM. 

On this day in 1918, the US Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time.

I went to sleep last night nearly a pessimist; I awoke this morning an optimist yet again. People choose freely, sometimes well, sometimes poorly. For the Whitewater Unified School District, these many months — ending at last night’s board meeting — were a time of free choice for the district’s board president and the district’s superintendent. 

The board president has chosen not to run for reelection; the superintendent has chosen to seek employment elsewhere. In both cases, those decisions are right for those officials and for the Whitewater Schools. Some relationships, including political and employment ones, sadly become irretrievably broken. Repair requires reconciliation, and reconciliation requires a willingness to accept the principles on which a sound relationship rests.

For the Whitewater Schools, reconciliation required these officials to make a choice and commitment they chose not to make. See Speech & Debate in the Whitewater Schools.  See also What Ails, What Heals, and Heals & Ails, General & Particular, Public & Private.

No one should be compelled to choose; it must be a free decision. One wishes the best to both — truly — in the future.  They deserve situations suitable to them. Not every fit is a good fit. The Whitewater Unified School District’s board will soon have the opportunity to choose a new president. That board will be able to oversee the selection of a new superintendent at the earliest opportunity, either through her employment elsewhere, a settlement agreement, or if regrettably necessary through lawful public action of the board.

For Whitewater, the daunting — yet hopeful — building of a new administration in a new district awaits. We need not fear that a choice today will lead to worse outcomes tomorrow. This community can achieve for its students academic success, athletic accomplishment, and artistic achievement under principles of individual rights and tolerance for all, without prejudice toward race, ethnicity, gender, or orientation.

The principles of limited, open, responsible government and individual rights hold the commanding heights. They occupy good ground; they have a defensible position. Those who hold these values will over-match those who oppose them. We need not be afraid of what comes next — we will shape what comes next. 

The work of crafting a new district begins. It is the work of years to come. It will require ongoing attention. Sometimes hard, but easier if we join together. Sometimes daunting, but always possible. 

It’s spring break for the Whitewater Schools next week, but while our students, teachers, and families enjoy their well-deserved vacation, others of us can begin our reflections and recommendations for the future. 

The Whitewater Schools will come through just fine. 

City, Daily Bread, Excuses and Rationalizations, Law, Local Government, Open Government, Public Meetings, Public Records, School District, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.15.24: A Sunshine Week Story

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 Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 52. Sunrise is 7:04 and sunset 7:02 for 11h 58m 32s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 33.4 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1991, the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany comes into effect, granting full sovereignty to the Federal Republic of Germany.

  It’s Sunshine Week in America. You know, your right to know. Miles Maguire has published a story for Sunshine Week about the fight for open government in Wisconsin entitled UW-Oshkosh buried facts about mishandled Native American remains. Sunshine laws uncovered them:

Last April the Wisconsin Examiner published an examination of the way that Native American human remains have been retained by public institutions in Oshkosh long after the passage of a federal law that was intended to speed their repatriation to the tribes that once inhabited the area.

The article included some startling details that demonstrated the callousness of the institutions, especially the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. But the university also managed to keep even more graphic information out of the story.

For example, readers did not learn that a Native American skull, collected in Oshkosh on the south bank of the Fox River, had been stolen in 1990 from an exhibit case on campus and “broken during the bungled burglary.” Nor did they read about the time that the remains of one individual went missing from an excavation where an assistant professor found 43 burials but apparently lost track of one “en route to the archaeology laboratory.”

The reason that these details, contained in inventory records that had been easily accessible at the campus library, were not included in my story was that during the course of my reporting university officials stepped in and placed the documents in a restricted area. I was in the midst of reviewing the documents when the university decided that they needed to be kept from the public on the basis of what turned out to be a completely bogus rationale.

Last month the university released a full set of the inventory records under prodding from the Winnebago County district attorney, whose investigation showed that UW Oshkosh had repeatedly and egregiously manipulated state law.

The DA’s investigation confirmed what I had asserted in a complaint filed in July, that UW Oshkosh had made a mockery of the state’s public records law, slow-walking responses, making up excuses for redacting information and misapplying doctrines like the attorney-client privilege. Among other things, I pointed out, UWO had withheld documents from me that it had released to another news organization and claimed that it had the right to keep from me a copy of an email that I myself had written.

(Emphasis added.)

Again and again: public officials in public institutions conducting public business aren’t entitled to private avenues of concealment. Officials who would like private protections can find those defenses just as soon as they return to private life. 

Not a moment sooner.

See also Speech & Debate in the Whitewater Schools. 

Watch Brewers grounds crew remove outfield covering at American Family Field before opening day:

Daily Bread, Education, Laws/Regulations, Literacy, School District, Wisconsin

Daily Bread for 3.9.24: From Here & Now, a Discussion of Wisconsin’s New Law on Reading Instruction

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 Good morning.

Saturday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 40. Sunrise is 6:14 and sunset 5:55 for 11h 41m 07s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court rules in the United States v. The Amistad case that captive Africans who had seized control of the ship carrying them had been taken into slavery illegally.

PBS Wisconsin’s Here & Now aired last night a segment on Wisconsin’s new law on reading instruction. That segment is embedded below: 

See also The Wisconsin DPI List of Science-Based Reading Curriculums: ‘Wisconsin, and other states, have moved to a public science of reading curriculum as a matter of law. In this way, the course (for now) on the general approach toward literacy in early grades has been set, even if the debate has not been settled between different academic perspectives (the science of reading or balanced literacy). Adopting a science of reading approach is state policy rather than a local decision.’

The Oldest Junk Boat Left in Hong Kong:

City, Daily Bread, Freedom of Speech, School District, Speech & Debate

Daily Bread for 3.8.24: Speech & Debate in the Whitewater Schools

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 Good morning.

Friday in Whitewater will be rainy with a high of 45. Sunrise is 6:16 and sunset 5:54 for 11h 38m 12s of daytime. The moon is a waning crescent with 5.1 percent of its visible disk illuminated.

On this day in 1775, an anonymous writer, thought by some to be Thomas Paine, publishes “African Slavery in America,” an article in the American colonies calling for the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery

No principled person, having observed over these recent months the conduct of the Whitewater School Board and its superintendent, could remain unconcerned. 

Since 2007, when FREE WHITEWATER first began publishing, no official in this city has advanced action through counsel against a resident, whether a private party or government official, to restrain free speech & debate1.  For this superintendent to have done so was a grave mistake. Since 2007, when FREE WHITEWATER first began publishing, no official in this city has sought refuge in closed sessions, so obviously to conceal error, as this board president and some other boardmembers have done. 

Since 2007, no official in this city has suggested, as this school board president has done, that a board member might be liable to censure for lawful speech. Principled men and women in Whitewater should not tolerate — must not tolerate — efforts to stifle speech through threats of censure.

The particular compensation awarded to an employee is less important than the method of the award by whom awarded and to whom awarded (especially if through a procurement policy).  Everyone who works in the Whitewater Unified School District works as an employee of a public institution paid at public expense. No employee of the Whitewater Unified School District has a private contract with a private employer. They have public contracts with a public employer. 

Those in this district who wish to work as private employees should — and must — seek private employment. There can be no private exceptions for anyone working for the public Whitewater Unified School District.

  1. This superintendent must abandon any legal action against the free speech rights of either boardmembers or residents. Failure to abandon action against speech rights should be disqualifying from public employment in the Whitewater Unified School District.  It is impossible for a principled person committed to free expression to hold otherwise.  

  2. This board president and any other board members must abandon the threat of censure against another board member over this matter. Failure to abandon the threat of censure should be disqualifying from membership on the Whitewater Unified School District Board. 

  3. The Whitewater Unified School District Board meets in regular session on Monday, March 18th. That regular session must offer an open dialogue between this superintendent and the residents of the community, other than a mere public comment period, to answer residents’ questions fully to the reasonable satisfaction of those residents. That regular session must offer an open dialogue between this school board and the residents of the community, other than a mere public comment period, to answer residents’ questions fully to the reasonable satisfaction of those residents. 

  4. The decision of this board president, other board members, and this superintendent to engage in dialogue is the right path forward to reconciliation. It is fair for all parties. Failure to take this opportunity should be disqualifying from employment or board membership in this district.

  5. There is time, but only a little time, left for this board, this board president, these board members, and this superintendent to speak candidly to Whitewater. Principled men and women in Whitewater should not tolerate — must not tolerate — concealment through closed sessions, cease-and-desist actions, and threats of censure.

Americans, including those of us in Whitewater, are inclined to kindness. Many of us these last few months have been restrained, and through this restraint, shown respect and kindness. Franklin Roosevelt was right, when speaking of our people, that no one should mistake our kindness for weakness.  

True in his time, and true in ours.

1. Someone once did worse, but then his career in this city later came to a deservedly ignominious end.