Good morning. 
Saturday in Whitewater will be mostly sunny with a high of 58. Sunrise is 7:10 AM and sunset 6:09 PM for 10h 58m 48s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 83.7% of its visible disk illuminated.
On this day in 1780, the Great Hurricane of 1780 finishes after its sixth day, killing between 20,000 and 24,000 residents of the Lesser Antilles.
Samantha Hendrickson and Alex Groth report Students and parents rally against the Waukesha School District’s ban on LGBTQ+ and other ‘controversial’ signs:
In an effort to ban “political” signage from classrooms, the Waukesha School District banned LGBTQ+ messages and symbols from being put up in schools — and the community showed up to fight it.
The ban called for the removal of things like rainbow flags, the phrase “safe space” and other “beyond the curriculum” signage, which many community members said only gave more permission for LGBTQ+ youth to be bullied and remain outsiders in their school environment.
For the second month in a row, Waukesha students and parents filled three rooms, waiting to speak their piece in front of the Waukesha School Board. Over 30 of them got their say over the span of an hour, both praising and criticizing the district’s actions.
Waukesha School Board has banned Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, anti-racist and other ‘controversial’ materials
In August, the board banned Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, Thin Blue Line, anti-racist and other posters deemed “controversial” materials from classrooms.
The public comments were not directly addressed by the board Wednesday, as the sign-banning policy was not an item listed on the meeting’s agenda.
In an Oct. 13 letter sent to families and staff following the meeting, district officials said they will have conversations with members of the school district to consider options to make sure everyone feels “safe and welcome.”
(Waukesha also previously rejected, but later resumed, participation in a federal school breakfast program (rejected originally on the theory that feeding hungry children before school might lead to a kind of ‘slow addiction’ to the program). See Waukesha School District Fails Even Before the Day Begins and Waukesha Schools Reverse Course on Meals Program.)
Other communities with speech-banning majorities on their school boards will find themselves in a similar position To Waukesha’s students: restrictions on free expression and against safe spaces.
Now, I do not speak for a particular community in Whitewater, the other towns within the Whitewater Unified School District, or any other place on this planet. I am, so to speak, an emissary of one. It is enough to oppose these restrictions on principle. It’s prudent to prepare a defense should this community face similar, restrictive efforts.
A reminder: neither boosterism nor toxic positivity will prove a bulwark against a motivated horde. Those are mere pop guns against a rhinoceros. See Boosterism’s Cousin, Toxic Positivity and Tragic Optimism as an Alternative to Toxic Positivity.
Darien, CT Students And Adults Call Out Discrimination In School:
At an emotional school board meeting Tuesday night, students, parents, and teachers attested to incidents of discrimination, racism, homophobia, and sexism they’ve experienced, with little or no response from the school board and community.