What Is Project 2025? And A Mom Is Fighting For Her School District (Hour 2)

From the Civic Media Radio Network, moving Wisconsin forward one joke at a time, this is

as goes Wisconsin with Kristen Brott.

Now, filling in for the new mom, here's Jane Mattenair.

Good morning and welcome, welcome, welcome to as goes, Wisconsin, broadcasting live from

our studio in downtown Walker Shot.

Good morning, receiving listening on WRJ and in was on WXCO.

So happy to have you along with us.

Greg Bach with me in studio Calvin on the board and our special guest and friend of the

show, Joseph Pecky is here.

Good morning, Joe.

How are you doing?

I'm good.

How's everybody else doing?

We are well, peachy keen, peachy keen.

Absolutely amazing.

I feel very blessed.

I got to see the new mom and that beautiful baby not too long ago.

Is she not adorable?

It Frankie's listening number one fan.

It was great to see it kiddo.

Yeah, she's, she's a little peach.

She really is and Kristen again joins us every Wednesday from 1032 11 while she's

still off on maternity leave.

But she's going to be back in just a couple of weeks.

Oh, first gone really quickly.

It's gone by really quickly.

Well, Joe, we have a couple of weeks before that.

I know, I know.

We as you on a couple of weeks ago.

And we just touched on this project 2025.

And I think it's really critically important that we delve a little bit deeper

into this and what this means, particularly because Donald Trump lately is

talking a lot about how great it would be to be a dictator.

And, you know, there's, there's actually an article in salon today that some

of his top officials who were heading up his campaign are worried.

He needs to stop doing this because he can't stop talking about how he wants to be a dictator.

And I think it's breaking everybody out.

It is they've, they've gone from wanting to plant the flag and be talking

about these authoritarian ish or fascistic like approaches that they would bring

to governing in a Trump 2.0 term to realizing that the response, the backlash,

the outcry was so enormous that they need to shut the heck up and just do it in secret.

And then it's a real like act 10 style conundrum, if you think about it,

because the reason to be out there and talk about the things you plan on doing

if elected, if so, you can plant the flag and point back to it and say the people knew

what they were getting and they voted for me.

That is, of course, not what happened in the infamous Scott Walker act 10 thing he

never gave any indication that he was coming after teachers union or public sector employees

and then he dropped the bond.

It was a sneak attack.

And that, of course, is like, listen, it can be a strategy for pursuing political

ends. But what's interesting here is it's just, it is very, very clear.

That from Trump on down through those acolytes who are closest to him, this is what they want to do.

They do have these designs and they thought the smart play was to just be candid about it

so that if elected, they could say, well, see, you guys all knew this was common to deal.

Yeah, we told you and now the response to it has been such.

We'll get to that later.

Let's not be presumptive.

So it's a real change in tone due to really an entire news cycle for like a week or two

that was all about these are the ways in which Trump is a threat to the republic and to democracy itself,

ranging from the Atlantic full issue to lots and lots of words written and pods casted

and news coverage of people saying, oh my god, this guy isn't being bashful about it.

He's joking about only being a dictator on day one, when you and I and everyone who has a

brain knows that in the over the arc of history, people who take more power and take more power

than they should have under the rules and norms and laws, that only moves in one direction.

They take more and take more and take more and it doesn't stop, which is why you cannot even have

a dictator in America for a moment. One moment would be too much, much less 24 hours because it

would not just be time-delimited, it would extend to a gross abuse of power and to undermining

everything that has made this country what it has been for all its ills and flaws.

It is the greatest country in the world and a model for the world.

And we would lose that if we had a dictator for even a day, even an hour, even a moment.

But at the same time, Joe, there are still a fair amount of Republican politicians who I've

seen out there. Oh, like you said, he's just joking. He doesn't mean that. You know, it's that's

not going to happen. And I think it's important that people realize that Donald Trump does not

have a sense of humor. Donald Trump does not tell jokes. Donald Trump insults. That's his

version of humor. He is never funny on purpose. And I'll give you just one example of that.

It is actually hilarious that someone would pretend to be a PR agent and call reporters

and boast about their love life, right? I mean, Greg's a comedian. That is objectively hilarious.

And there's so much material there. But he didn't do it for the laugh. He thought that was the

same strategic, important way to keep his name out there. He wasn't doing it for a bit. He did it

because he was dead serious about, oh, everybody needs to know that I'm sleeping around and dating

beautiful women. So yeah, that's like the best example I can think of of just how unfunny this guy

is when he says something we have to take it literally and seriously at the same time. And I

would just point to Liz Cheney's comments recently, you know, who has been on the book tour. So

she's got books to sell. We should be candid about that. Right. But when people say, why are you so

sure that at a Trump 2.0 presidency, he would try to overstay his term. And she just kind of looks

at everybody who asks that question like their idiots or have three heads and goes, well, because he

tried to do it before. Right. The best predictor of future performance is past performance. Absolutely.

And so if he was willing to not only run a multi-pronged strategy to try and do a coup that failed,

if he was willing, you know, eight or nine months into Joe Biden's term, I forget exactly when

it was. I want to say like August of 2021, to say things like, I am calling for a suspension of

the Constitution and for his reinstatement into the White House. If you are extra constitutional,

you are by definition outside the bounds of American political theory and thought and laws

and norms. And that is what makes people say that's tyrannical. That's fascistic. That's authoritarianism,

whether it's light or heavy or somewhere in between, we won't know. But it is not American

democracy as we have come to know it over almost 250 years. I remember watching the night of

the election in 2020. And he got up there like two, 30 in the morning. He said, we're going to call

the Supreme Court to close the polls, stop the county or stop the counting. We won, we know we won.

And I remember thinking to myself, can he do that? Wait a minute. Can he, wait, can a president do

that? I don't know, like I just was like, like I have very, I have very limited constitutional law

training. But I have, like, but I even then I was like, I was like, I, because we've never done

that. I don't know of any present in history. He's like, I'm going to stop the count. You know,

and one of the things we taught, we, we, we, Jay and I talked about this after a show on day.

And something that is in my brain about this whole thing is I do recognize that those are horrible

words he's saying. I do recognize that I don't want to dictate it or a fascist or any kind of

person, even for a day, or as you said, Joe, even an hour. But the thing I've always noticed,

and I don't think this means we should let it let our guard down either is the fact that he,

in the beginning of his presidency, he, he surrounded himself with what could be called

brighter minds, if you will, Titans of industry, successful people. And what do they do? They all

left because they were like, this guy's insane. And I can't do anything with him. And I can't

change him either. So we're going to get it's exhausting. Yeah. Yeah. That's like,

exhausting dealing with that level of crazy all day every. Yes. So in 2024 hypothetical, he wins

who's left who's smart enough capable and has the connections to even do the things he wants to

do. Or is it just going to be the Benny Hill show? Just people running around like idiots.

I don't think either of those is quite right. These are, these will not be these are not the brightest

minds in our nation. They're going to be yes, men. They are yes, men. And they are all men.

And they're not cartoon characters. Yeah. Because they will resort to brute force if nothing

else to get their way. So some of the names that we have seen of the type of accolades around him

would be General Michael Flynn of QAnon famed who is pardoned by Donald Trump in a national

security role. You would see cash Patel as director of the CIA. Mr. Patel was one of the late

installations at the Pentagon who everybody was worried about. And Patel has said very recently

that when they go in, they're not just coming after journalists who were mean to Trump.

They're coming after whistleblowers and people inside the government. The CIA is not a domestic

intelligence organization. They are not allowed to operate on American soil. So you want to talk

scary. Where does that stop? Right? If the head of the CIA is saying if you oppose Trump, we're coming

after you, that should be terrifying. Absolutely. Absolutely. We're talking about Jeffrey Clark,

the knucklehead who was wrapped up in all the January six stuff, who was an environmental lawyer.

An environmental lawyer who believed in the big lie, who Trump was planning to install as acting

attorney general after Bill Barr left. And because Jeffrey Clark had said, I will sign off on the

letter falsely claiming that the Department of Justice is investigating serious problems with the

vote. And basically the entire leadership of the Department of Justice said, if you do this,

we will all resign. It will make the Nixon era Saturday night massacre look like a walk in the park.

And so Trump backed down. So he would be like attorney general. And Steve Bannon would be back

as like chief of staff is the reporting. One of the another guy who was pardoned by Trump.

So it is all of like a couple of these guys are literal criminals, felons who were pardoned by Trump.

Yes, who owe everything to him. And therefore in their roles with significant power,

would have no inclination to say no to the boss. That maybe there's a different way.

That's terrifying. I'll make this really quick. That's not so much the point I'm trying to make

is that at some point, he will not like the fact that he's got people in charge below him because

he wants to be in charge all the time and control everything. That's where I see him driving people

away. That's kind of my thought on that one. So we are going to keep this going. Joseph

Peckie is here. You can always chime in at 844-967-2789 talking about project 2025. When we return,

this is Asgos, Wisconsin, across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Good morning and welcome to Asgos, Wisconsin, Jane McNair. In for Kristen Brie,

she will be here on Wednesday at 1030. Hope you will join us then. Greg Mach with me in studio

Calvin on the board and also joining us. Our friend, Joe is a peckie is here just a reminder.

Quick to listen to our newest show. Nightlight with Pete Schwabba. We talked to Pete on Friday.

Here's every weekday from eight to 10 across the Civic Media Radio Network and on the app.

It is a fine app. It is a wonderful app. It is app everyone should have. It's appleicious.

It's appleicious. And it's free. So we were talking with Joe about Donald Trump lately,

just talking about how he's going to be a dictator and then people around him saying,

oh, he's just joking. It's not going to happen. And then there's project 2025,

which essentially Joe, from the way I see it, is a roadmap on how to govern like a dictator.

I think your mic is off.

Thank you for that.

Sorry. Project 2025 from the humorous standpoint is the kind of vetting where you'll find out

that Greg Bach likes Cheryl Crow, which you wouldn't necessarily assume just by looking at him.

I love Cheryl Crow. She's a national treasure. Everyone should.

Yes. No, in all seriousness, so as far as it goes July, reporting by the New York Times,

detailed a $22 million effort by the Heritage Foundation to do something called Project 2025,

which is an effort to prevent vetting is like background check. What are your values?

What are your principles? You know, if we want to hire you for a position, we vet you.

And so what they're trying to do is they understand that this group understands that like Trump

and his closest campaign folks will figure out those names and positions that we did before the

break. Where does Mike Flynn go? Where does Steve Bannon? Don't forget about Stephen Miller,

because he'll be right there too. And Stephen, Stephen Miller, but with across the federal government,

below those cabinet level positions, there are thousands and thousands of roles and jobs.

I happened to be in one of them during President Obama's first term that are essentially

political appointees, where some folks come into an agency across the federal government

with the changing of the administration and they work with the career civil servants.

And what they are trying to find are the most extreme, the most mega, the most Trump loyal

individuals imaginable to fulfill those roles. So like, for example, when I got an appointment

by the Obama administration, it came before I had ever worked for Barack Obama for a day.

In fact, I had worked for one of his opponents in the primary. I worked for another Democrat who

had worked against him. If Barack Obama had a Donald Trump like mindset, I would be persona non-grat.

Absolutely. Because I would not meet the sufficient loyalty test. And that's the kind of like

craziness of all of this is the number one job qualification that this project 2025 appears

to be indicating is loyalty to Trump, not to the Constitution, not to the United States.

And down that road trouble lies because we do not swear oaths of service to a king or to

a president. We swear oaths to the Constitution of the United States if we are going to serve

in either a military or civilian capacity. And it is that serious. To be a political appointee

in the administration of Barack Obama, I had to swear an oath to the Constitution to,

you know, due to the best of my ability, everything I could to protect the common interest and defend

against, you know, enemies foreign and domestic. I took that oath to the Constitution, not to Barack

Obama. What Donald Trump and his cronies are trying to do is to invert that and make them loyal

first and foremost to an individual rather than to the country. And we just cannot afford that.

So I'm, I guess I'm baffled why some business executives and very wealthy people think installing

Donald Trump as a dictator is going to work out well for them because all you have to do is look

at Russia and the number of well connected businessmen who have helped Putin and they fall

out of windows with shocking regularity. Get poisoned. It's, again, it's the leprits eating people's

faces party and it's going to eat your face because that's on the title and it's going to come

for everybody. Yeah, and I think I think it for so long the idea was so far fetched that America

would elect someone so tyrannical that it is like there is a limit to our imagination sometimes

with Trump that should no longer be the case. If you try to do a coup and to prevent a peaceful

transition of power, the bounds of all of our imagination, whether you're the CEO of a fortune 100

or 500 company or a small business owner, should understand that maybe you support Trump.

Maybe you've given him money. Maybe if he was, you know, elected your business would do really

well for a year. But if you did one thing that got you crosswise with Mr. Trump,

then your life is miserable and you're being investigated and audited and the domestic

you know, extra legal CIA program run by Cash Patel is digging into your past and your history

because it turns out that people have forgotten but 15 years before that, you had given money to a

Democrat who was now one of the Democrats on Capitol Hill who was being mean to Trump. And so they

said, well, to punish that member of Congress, we're going to go after everyone who ever gave them

money. And that is just one example, but we have to use our imagination to consider

how bad this could get just how quickly. And, you know, punishing enemies real or perceived

is not the job of the American president. It just isn't.

Well, and I can't why on earth would we want nothing but loyalists serving in an administration?

That's a terrible idea because we don't think like them. They think it's great because it means

their side's winning all the time. But don't most responsible people realize that sometimes hearing

no is a good thing. You're talking, you can't, those aren't reasonable people you're dealing with

though. Those individuals weren't that Joe's talking about. They're not reasonable. So, of course,

not folks like us. Yes. Can I admit that we need to be told no one we're wrong? I think that's

kind of an important piece. Yeah. Yeah. But not them, especially people who have never been told

know their entire life or said, and I just, I know we're running out of time. And I want to be,

I want to remind everybody listener and, you know, contributor here alike that just because people

support Trump right now and they are maybe even MAGA Republicans does not mean that they all

intrinsically think tyrannically or like an authoritarian in the way that Donald Trump does.

Certainly. And so I would just ask everybody as they have these conversations with people in

their life to come with a little grace and to understand that there are a lot of Americans

who are so frustrated with our political systems with the way that things have gone in this country

that they are considering extraordinary actions like supporting Trump even though they saw what

he did. And we need to like meet them where they are in understanding that frustration, not necessarily

matching it, but explaining why it's so scary and why the answer to their frustrations is not

Trump 2.0. Joe as a peckie has been our guest. Thank you so very much, my friend. All the best to you

and your family. Have a wonderful, wonderful holiday. Stay with us. You're listening to Asgos

Wisconsin across the Civic Media Radio Network.

UK.

Good morning. Welcome. Welcome to Asgos Wisconsin. Jane Mattnare,

feeling in for Kristen Brie on maternity leave. Calvin's on the board. Greg Bot with me in

studio. And we're joined with another special guest. I'm just going to call you Germantown mom.

Melissa Garves, Melissa, thank you so much for coming in studio today. Thanks for having me.

Well, this is all tied to a complaint filed at the end of September against the Germantown

school district. And you were among the parents who filed this complaint. Can you tell us what the

complaint was was based on? Yeah, so it was a complaint with the Department of Education Office

of Civil Rights and it outlined a number of incidents and systemic behavior that has been ongoing

in our school district, impacting students of color, LGBTQ students, special education students,

not meeting the needs of these kids and also not addressing serious situations when they arise

adequately and preventing them from happening again. Can you share some of the incidents that have

happened? Sure, so I can tell you what my daughter was involved in in her math class last

year. They were playing a game online where you have an avatar and she chose for her avatar rainbow

outfit and another little boy rallied the kids to kill all the pride skins. What? Yeah, no, to kill

all the pride, all the pride skins. Yeah. And my daughter tried to get some help from the teacher

and the teacher kind of dismissed the concerns. And so my daughter kind of went away and emailed me

at home and said, I'm in math classes. This is what's happening. I don't know what to do.

And so I reached out to the school to say, what is happening? You know, and the boy who

caused it was asked to apologize and his apology was, I don't support LGBTQ people. That was

his apology. That's not an apology. Unfortunately, we have policies in our district that don't allow

classroom education on certain topics and those topics include gender and sexual orientation and

so no classroom level discussion was had around this incident, which is how it really should have

been handled. Absolutely. You talk about it. Huge opportunity to educate kids and we can't do that

in our district. So that's really for each one of the incidents outlined in that complaint. It

talks about how the policies in place are really preventing staff from addressing these issues

because they're prevented from talking about them. They have to adhere to these policies. They're

they have they're not the ones writing them. Right. Right. So concurrent to that, we also have an

issue of priorities in our district. So on October 23rd, we had our annual meeting, which almost

all districts in Wisconsin are required to have ones per year. At that meeting, most people don't

know that citizens are afforded a number of powers and those include things like authorizing a

school board to purchase property. You can vote on attacks to fund the needs of the school.

You can require the school to provide school lunches and set aside funds to do that as a citizen.

As a citizen. And you can also vote on board compensation, which is what happened in our meeting.

Group of citizens put forth a motion that reduced our school board pay more in line with other

area districts. You can imagine they didn't like that. I bet they were. I can just imagine.

Shocking. I think the eyebrow raising that must have happened. Yeah. So they came up with a work

around that gave themselves a duo over at their next meeting and they voted to hold another meeting.

But let's try this again because we didn't follow Robert's rules of orders to a tee.

No, interestingly, this is a violation of their own parliamentary procedure policy, which says

you don't have to follow Robert's rules of order to a tee. But they did. They're going to ignore

the policy anyway. Sure. Sure. So also at that November 20 meeting, what's important to know is that

a representative of the Germantown Education Association, a teacher got up and publicly shared

concerns that they've been raising behind closed doors for a long time. It is so rare for one of

our teachers to be willing to take that risk because it is a real risk of retaliation. Absolutely.

Absolutely. But we are at a point in our district where they think that risk is worth it.

And what they shared is they are so concerned about how they are being treated in our district

because it is causing us to lose teachers. This calendar year to date, we have already lost more than

30 teachers that represents more than 300 years of experience. Devastating loss for our kids.

That's terrible. Well respected long term members of our teaching staff.

They're leaving because our average pay is so much lower than other districts for your teachers.

Our teachers. We just had a teacher leave during the school year, which is also rare because when

they break their contract, they have to pay penalties. But she's going to make $13,000 more at the

other district. So I would leave too. Right. On top of that is how they're being treated.

They're being verbally disrespected, like in a lot of communities. And they are not being given

the resources they need to be successful. And they haven't had for a long time. For a long time.

Yep. I'll give you some examples. Last year, we didn't even have enough paper. They didn't

have enough paper to print on. They were told to stop printing in April. School ends in June.

So of course, parents rallied and bought some paper. Parents have also had to raise

hundreds of thousands of dollars over the past few years to replace old, unsafe playground equipment,

broken smart boards, even had to purchase a water fountain at one of our elementary schools.

Things districts should provide. Now we are not an economically disadvantaged community.

I was going to say you're in Germantown. So this is not an issue of we can't afford it. This is an

issue of our priorities are in the wrong place. Our boards priorities have been a self-appointed

mission to micro-manage curriculum in every single classroom. And that gets to the respect for

our teachers and their professionalism. We're going to search for rainbows behind every closed

door instead of ensuring our teachers have what they need to teach our children and provide them

the best possible education. Melissa Garbis is our guest. She's a mom from Germantown.

Talking about a complaint that was filed against the Germantown school districts and there

is going to be another meeting tonight. There is. What are you expecting to happen? What could

potentially happen, Melissa? So the board's justification for this meeting is that there's a motion

on the table. That was approved at the annual meeting that never received a final vote. So

technically we should vote on that amended motion. However, we've been told that they're going

to completely start over from the beginning. So what we will do is put forth a motion that says

board members, we are going to set your annual salary at $1,400, which is equal to about $41

per meeting hour that you attend on average, which is equal to the average teacher hourly

salary. You want to make more money? Simple. Race teacher pay. Your pay will go up.

We expect that the community that attends will vote in favor of our amended motion and the

board's salary will be reduced and a message will be sent that the priority in Germantown needs to

be students and teachers first. What an unbelievable waste of resources, right? When I think about

all of the needs that all of our schools have and we expect, we expect our teachers to do so

much and we, as you said, we don't give them the tools for it, but they should be an educator,

a child psychologist, they have to be a sociologist, they have to be a risk,

willing to take on risks and getting the middle of fights and they broke all their own materials.

What other job would people do if you had to supply all of your own things in order to perform

this job? Yeah, you have to start every year out making an Amazon wish list just for the basics,

right? That's just crazy. That's how that's how bad it is in this country. We have a business,

we have a website that is designed for teachers to put what they need so other people can buy it for

them, which is a great organization, but we shouldn't be a country that has that. It should be

provided paper pencils, staples, staplers, all those things. It just blows my mind and so many

friends who have, who are teachers to spend anywhere from two to $500 a year materials.

Well, but they're, but they're making all that big money. Oh, yeah. So they can, they can afford

a bunch of moody and thank God they have, they have the right to collective bargaining in the

state. Oh, yeah, wait. Oops, he doodles. Well, and we were talking Melissa a little bit off the

ear just about and you had mentioned the teacher who actually stood up to testify. We need to embrace

our teachers again. We need to, we need to respect what they do again as opposed to demonizing them

and blaming them and it breaks my heart. But what's even worse though is that teachers along with

nurses, along with military and even to, I mean, some could even include police and fire.

These are all people we say they're heroes and they're wonderful and we should hold them

in the past all and when it comes time to help them, whether it's the VA, whether it's teachers,

we're like, no, not today. Sorry. Can you, and then the moment you say, but I need help, hey,

we called you a hero. That's important. I feel good about myself by your own pencils.

Yeah. And every single one of those careers that you just talked about for most people are a calling.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. I didn't get that calling. So I respect the heck out of people who did.

Oh, to be a teacher. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Or nurse or any of this. Yes. Yeah. I mean,

absolutely. That is service. That is service to the highest regard if you have the best of heart.

That the patients that that it requires and the if I was a teacher, they would all be duct taped

to the wall just so I would know they were all the time. So that probably wouldn't be very popular.

Teacher of the year, Jane.

844-967-2789, Jack from Merrimack Longtime Educator. Good morning, Jack.

Good morning. Yeah. As you pointed out, I'm retired at this point. I spent over 40 years and I

taught at levels from sixth grade to university level and public private and baroqueal school.

And the first thing I'm going to say is that the the legislature has got the money. They just

keep on shorting our public schools and shorting our public school. For instance, in this last

budget, they gave as as private school welfare $3,000 first student, first student to every woman

that time is called voucher program. I call it. You're breaking up a little bit. There we go, Jack.

Okay. Anyway, they generously will allow a school district to give up to to finance up to

$300 per student in public schools, but they have to pass a referendum to tax themselves

more to do that. That's just so outrageous. It's unbelievable. Now, there is a lawsuit that's

going to come, and maybe it's already before our Supreme Court that basically points out

this is an unfair to tier system. School choice in my experience means the school gets to

choose. They choose whom to admit they choose who to reject. Yep. And who to reject. Thank you so

much, Jack. We really appreciate it. He's not wrong. Yeah. You know, he's not wrong. We got a text

from the 608 West from Middleton. He said, I used to be optimistic that a lot of racism is

xenophobia, homophobia, and the like would age out. Quote unquote, and the younger folks would be

more open minded perspective to society. But coordinate effort by some of the likes of moms

of liberty and the hate taught by so many in homes is such a great example that the fight continues

to go on and I feel bad. And I'm sorry that your daughter had to go through that. That's terrible.

Yeah. And it happens to, you know, black and brown kids and LGBTQ kids and our schools on a daily

basis. Yeah. 844-967-2789 if you want to call and or text, stay with us. You're listening to

ASGO's Wisconsin airing across the civic media radio network.

Good morning. Welcome to ASGO's Wisconsin Jane Matt Nair. In for Kristen, Brian, Greg

Bach with me in studio Calvin is on the board and our special guest Germantown mom Melissa

Garvis is here ahead of the Germantown school board meeting that is happening tonight and talking

about the frustrations of parents and the lack of response from the school board and where their

focus is and where it should be. And Melissa, what do what can parents do? It's got to feel,

you've got to feel so helpless. What what options do you have? Yeah, that's such a great question

because I watched parents and students stand before the board during public comments and beg

to have their concerns. He heard clearly teachers have been begging to be heard. I've sent countless

emails and I've never received one response from our school board president. Never. Do you know

what response to every single email I've ever sent? Every single one of my kids teachers.

Can you imagine them just choosing not to respond to a parent? It would never be accepted.

They're paid by public tax sellers. Yeah. Well, they don't have to answer to you.

But parents have powers and and I think most don't realize that community members have powers.

Interestingly, at these annual meetings, citizens are afforded a long list of things,

some of which I shared with you. I encourage every listener to search Wisconsin association

of school boards, annual meeting guidelines. It will take you to a 52 page document that clearly

spells out everything that should happen at an annual meeting. All the powers that citizens have,

the things that they can do. It doesn't have to wait for an annual meeting because by law,

those all had to take place by October 31st. However, with signatures, the most you have to gather

is 100. If you're a small community less than that, you can call a special meeting and you can

set the agenda and you can use all those powers to hold your school board accountable and set the

priorities for your district and ensure that teachers and students come first. That's really important

for people to know that's hugely important. And then it's also hugely important to get a person

who's going to be willing to step up. It does and leave the charge. It does because we're so thinly

stretched, right? Everybody is busy, especially parents, right? Parenting is a real full-time job

these days. And so attention span for any additional subdomain to put another thing on your plates.

Right. So you absolutely need some folks that are willing to organize and help educate

the community. And the other thing that's so important is to ensure you're putting the right people

in positions of power to start with. When elections come around and seats come up for a vote,

you have to get to know these people and understand their values. Are they going to put students

in teachers and education first or are they going to pursue a personal political agenda? Because

that never serves our kids. No, no, it doesn't. And unfortunately, sometimes, and we've talked about

this before, I think ultimately the goal is to kill public education in this country. I agree with

you. It is. They want to kill public education and funnel everything into private schools

and private religious schools. And it was evidenced by what the legislature when Jack just mentioned that

the increase that private school voucher parents got. And they tied that to inflation so that

it's going to work out better for these parents. Oh, yes, they got right. Yeah. And that was

the interesting thing, but they didn't do it for farmers for farmers. So the, yeah, they can't,

they can't tie that to inflation. I can't remember the name of the term, but yeah. And when they

asked the question, why are you allowing parents to not only write this off in their taxes, but

adjust to for inflation, you're not doing for the farmers. It was 35 seconds of silence.

Dead silence from anyone who's and they were looking into like, what do you want to do? Yeah.

And then she was like, well, I guess I have my answer. So I mean, and the thing is at least,

at the very least now, they're very, they're those candidates who are running for school board,

who have these just as you refer to the bell curve idea, like who are just far on the very end of

the bell curve that you don't want to deal with, they make it very well known in their, in their

literature, in on their websites, everything they do, it's always because they don't have an

original thought in their brain. So they're just regurgitating, well, climate change isn't real.

And we need to be less sensitive. And kids need to be kids that is like, they just put themselves

out there. She know right away. Well, I'm not voting for that crazy person. Well, not everyone is

always at, I think there are some people who are a little bit more subtle when they start,

when they start out, trying to get onto these positions. And only once they have these positions,

do they really reveal what their true intention is? Yeah. Yeah. One of the places you can look to

try and differentiate is who is endorsing them, right? Yes. That's a huge reveal of where their

priorities and intentions are. Yeah, definitely. Melissa Garvers, we just have a couple of minutes left

talking about the school board meeting tonight in German town. If you live in German town,

and you're a parent, you should absolutely attend. Have you taken heat in your community by

being one of the point people for this? Anyone who speaks out against is definitely takes heat.

Grown adults creating fake social media profiles to personally attack others is not uncommon. Really?

People have that much time on their hands. They do. They do. Oh my god.

Uh-huh. And then they're setting the example for their children. Absolutely. Yeah. And now you see

why some of these situations of discrimination and harassment play out in our school so frequently.

Because they're seeing it at all. They're hearing the message at home. Yeah. That is okay to treat others

this way. Absolutely. Well, I hope things go well tonight. Thank you. And I would love to,

how much are you going to owe? You're lowering your salary to 1400. 1400, which equates to $41 per hour,

which is the average teacher salary. If you break it down to an hourly rate, now I will admit

that's a gross overestimation of their hourly rate, because it does not take into account all the

lesson planning, grading for teachers. Oh, yeah. All the things they do outside of school hours.

Right. So we recognize they put their heart and soul into their jobs. Embrace our teachers.

It makes school board positions voluntary. Amen. In 13 states, it's barred from compensating them.

Now there's some non-profit board members are typically not compensated. So why are public schools

any different? That's a really, really good point. It's been so illuminating talking to you to Melissa.

Thank you so much for coming and really appreciate it. Stay close for the news.

Followed by the Todd Alba show across the Civic Media Radio Network. Have a wonderful day. Thank

you Greg. Thank you, Calvin. Thank you, Joseph Pecky and Todd and Melissa and all of you at home for

listening without you. We're nothing. We'll be back tomorrow.