And like launch, that's what we do. Classes in session busted pencils fully. Let it education
talk educated educators, talking education. Yeah, typically Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, me, Dr. Tim
Slecker, and yes, Jacob chairman of the boards, but Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, well, you know, you've
heard it many times. Um, that guy does a lot of things, um, besides busted pencils full time
faculty, um, administrator at Washington State University full time dad with two daughters,
full time Washington State hockey coach. And occasionally he has a hockey game to go to. And
this happens to be one of those days, Jacob. So I figure, you know, we'll cut him some slack today.
I like it, Tim, because I think it makes us seem a lot cooler because we've got a hockey coach
as part of the team. Hey, you and I are leaving after this to watch more Star Trek, which is fine.
You know, it's it's cool, but it doesn't make us seem as, as awesome as a, as a tough mustache
hockey coach. Oh, so much to go on on the hockey coach. However, Jacob, I may have to admit
that my desire to finish this show and go watch Star Trek will probably be interrupted by
needing to put in my time with dancing with the stars. Tim, I'm saying so who is the big star
this year on Dancing with the Stars? By the way, is, uh, I, did I write that Andy Richter is on
there? Oh, if he is, he's already gone from, oh, you know what, here's my wife loves the show.
And I, you know, do what occasionally I, you know, put on a show that I like the show.
Um, but there is one where I was kind of like, you know, oh, that's cool to see that, but, um,
the crocodile hunter's son is one of the stars. Um, and he's like really good.
Well, dancing a tango and wrestling a gator are basically the same activity just in different
formats. So it makes sense that those skills translate over to the world of, of the dance.
Yeah, well, I just want to hear him doing one of the dances, though, dude, do the cranky, you know,
um, he hasn't done it yet, but so I know, yeah, but Johnny, hockey coach, too, and every time
I think about hockey, I just automatically go back to the Hanson brothers and one of my favorite
movies, not just favorite sports and hockey movie, but the original 1970s,
slap shot classic movie, classic movie. Do you know anybody who happened to be in
slap shot? Do you, have you ever met any people? Can you tell us an anecdote, perhaps?
I actually met the entire
war memorial, um, fans that were there for the, uh, filming of, because Jacob, I was one of those
people in, yes, you know, I mean, if you watched this one scene that cut across the audience,
the fans, and you'll see me, okay? Trust me. It's a real quick that cut across the whole state,
and there I, whew, there I was, but, but I was there. Yeah, interesting, filmed in John's Town,
Pennsylvania at the John's Town War memorials, people going, they weren't John's, I know,
they were the Charles town chiefs, but actually they were, uh, modeled off of a minor league hockey
team in John's Town, Pennsylvania called the John's Town chiefs. Um, and, um, my aunt was from
there. And, uh, when they were filming, they're like, hey, come down there. It's, you know, they're
looking for extras. Um, and those extras, your job was to sit there and act like you're watching a hockey
game. Tim, you may call them extra actors. I call them essential actors here on busted pencils,
because if not for them, the, the seats would be empty, and the scene would be ruined. So
thank you to our essential actors out there, like you, Tim Slecker, um, making our movies happen.
I love being essential, but, you know, hey, classes in session, and I thought Jacob, hey,
you know, there aren't, we all sometimes need to admit that we have things to learn.
Um, or sometimes how to listen and to pay attention and to take in information and to process
that information with as much objectivity as we can before we come to some type of a conclusion.
Right? I mean, that's what it means to be a democratic citizen, not a Democrat,
but a citizen in a democracy is, is that we want critical thinking people who have the ability
to, you know, parse with information, with facts, with situations, context, and come up with
decisions that, you know, are grounded in that whole idea of being a democratic citizen, not
being a partisan, because that's what we do here at Busted Pencils. In fact, before we even get
to that, Jacob, I was thinking, you know, Busted Pencils, democracy's digital asset.
Thank you. Thank you. Boom. Boom. Right there. And why not bring in democracy's digital asset with,
you know, a little bit of a democratic kind of lived lesson. And, and Jacob, you would
sent me the Wisconsin Public Radio article, which yes, people WPR also puts out digital
media, not just people talking. And it was an article that highlighted a, um, the Republican
legislature, and something they did, right? And people are going, oh my goodness, because,
you know, they heard us, I'm sure, talking about, you know, the Republican state legislature and
Wisconsin passing, mandated 12-hour teaching, and we kind of broke that down. And, you know, we,
we kind of laid into the Republican legislature. Um, and so it must be then, if the Republican
legislature did something related to education, no need to read any further, right, Jacob?
I sent this to you, Tim, and I was thinking, oh, cool, Tim's going to come in, fired up,
and angry about what those darn dirty Republicans in Madison were up to this week. And I was excited
to hear that we're actually going to have a conversation about it instead. Yeah, nothing there was,
I'm like, okay, you know, so I say listener, you know, and Jacob will put it in the podcast
description for when, when you do this to get to that piece. But it, um, they, they, there were a
bunch of different education things that they had passed. But the one that really got the headlines
is that the Republican legislature passed legislation that kind of pushes what we call school
district consolidation, right? And I'm interested to hear more about that, Tim, because I'm not
overly familiar with what this is all about. I get that in the broad strokes and we can talk more
about it. But it said, there's fewer students than there used to be in Wisconsin. I think other
states too. And it's about consolidating those districts. What does that actually mean, though?
Well, I mean, pretty, you're pretty much spot on is to recognize that with declining
population, declining demographics, particular, particularly the K 12 demographic, if we're talking
about schools, fewer and fewer kids. But yet the same number of, think about this, right? So
last year at Wisconsin School Elementary School X, there were three second grades with 22 kids
in each of those three second grades, right? You know, like, well, and that's why they have
three second grade classrooms because you need three classrooms to work with three groups of
22. Well, over time, when you're not growing or staying steady, you might be declining, which is
is a fact, there are fewer students, K 12 in the Midwest, actually in the Northeast too,
some of the few growing places, the Mount in the Southwest and some of the southern areas.
But, you know, the Northeast in the Midwest, there is a decline. We've talked about this,
you know, there's a decline in college students coming. You know, there's an overabundance of old
people coming. And there's an underabundance of youngins. And so think about this is that so
over time, now instead of three groups of 22, oh my goodness, this school year looks like we're
going to have three groups of 15, right? And you start thinking. And so at the building level,
building principle, looking at that has to start making a decision with the budget, which is because
let's be real, each student then is a certain amount of tax dollars that comes with them to help
fund their education, which is, you know, paying the teachers. So if you've got, you know,
do the math, that many less kids, right? But you're still paying for the upkeep of three classrooms,
and you're still paying for three teachers, but you're actually not bringing in the same amount of
revenue. And so a school district gets into a budget issue there, right? So that's what we're
talking about here happening that school populations across Wisconsin are largely on the decline.
And so it, this kind of gets to the point of going, holy crap, this is maybe not that much of a
complex issue if we're only just really wrestling with numbers when you sit down and go, so a school
district, now let's expand that out to a school district that might have a high school two middle
schools and five elementary schools. Now, all of a sudden, that school district actually needs to
close to elementary school buildings because we need to bring those students so that we can have,
you know, a massive students that makes sense. But then you get to the point where you start looking
at this and going, but those, those other buildings still require funding upkeep maintenance.
And then the school district is over in the next community is going through the same thing.
And they've got fewer students and they've got buildings. And so what do you do? Because it's a
public school system. And well, you say, hey, maybe school district A and school district X,
maybe you should become the new school district A X. And let's bring together all of our resources
so that we could have, you know, hopefully a new thriving population of a robust enrollment.
And so that's all we're talking about here. And actually when you look closely and read to
the legislation actually creates a resource. In other words, cash to help school districts that
would be interested in consolidating or maybe the other word people might get an understanding is
to merge to bring some multiple school districts together into one new one. And the legislation
doesn't require it. It puts in motion an incentive to do it. And that incentive is also coming with
cash to help that consolidation happen. And I read that and went, well, yeah, that only makes sense.
Yes, I've got the direct quote here from the article Shannon Zimmerman, representative from
River Falls says, this is a feasibility package. This is not a mandate. This is if the school feels
compelled to explore the option, we're giving them the tools to be able to do so. I think that makes
a lot of sense. And from what you've been describing to me here on the show today, it does make sense.
It sounds like cutting down on some of the unnecessary expense of heating and cooling and
maintaining a school built for 800 when there's only 400 people. And it's still that makes sense to
me. If I could ask you, though, Tim, I mean, why are people opposed to this? What is the other
side? I mean, what is it simply that? And I can see one thing right away. Is it simply we care
about our teachers? And we can see that if we're cutting down on classrooms that could mean less
teachers, is that the big sticking point? Or am I missing something else in that too?
No, I mean, so the opposition to this is, yeah, I mean, okay, you're going to need fewer teachers.
Yeah, you are. I don't like that. I don't like how that feels. I get that. You know, what
I'm saying here is this is not something that you go, oh, the Republicans were right and we need
to celebrate. No, it's they're just pointing out a reality. And so to this to me, it becomes
a painful though process to actually do it. And here in Pennsylvania, I've seen it done a few times.
And it is not something that just, whoa, aren't we better now that we're all together?
Because you got all kinds of things. See, like you just said, first of all,
actually that consolidation or merging typically then means that you have less
both faculty and staff, right? So yeah, there's going to be some cuts to do that.
There's also the issue of maybe the school that was down the street from you
when this consolidation happens, now your kids on a bus for 40 minutes going to the other school,
right? And so that's painful, unpleasant, uncomfortable, something as a parent, you go like,
well, this doesn't make any sense to me and my child because school was right down the road.
Everything was working out great for me. And so that that's painful. And then the other part,
so too, is that, you know, not that we don't like our neighbors, but, you know, come on, I'm
we're the steel Valley iron man and you're the West Mifflin Vikings. And I'm never going to be
a Viking ever because I'm an iron man. Yeah. I feel what you're saying. Yeah.
It's funny. It's funny Tim because, you know, it's kind of like Dr. Pepper versus Mr. Pib,
the more similar you are, you were two towns right next to each other, the more that rivalry grows.
And you feel like, no, no, you're sure our towns are essentially the exact same place here in
Central Pennsylvania, but darn it, we're on this side of the highway.
Right. You know, and my grandfather was a Viking and my father was a Viking. Yeah.
And my kid's going to be a Viking and his kid's going to be a Viking. And you're like, well,
maybe not. And actually, yeah, having grown up in Pennsylvania where I saw a significant one
around the Pittsburgh area, particularly in, you know, after the late 70s and 80s and the,
you know, essentially the implosion of U.S. steel. And truly, you know, a lot of joblessness,
but then also population decline. A lot of these kind of small town, you know, river mill town
school districts, they lost significant populations. And so I remember Mrs. Swissvale,
Hopevale, whatever, there were three of them actually. And, you know, they were, I think they
were like the Vikings, the Spartans and the warriors, right? They're all a shade of warrior.
And, you know, the new Woodland Hills, they were the new Woodland Hills Titans.
They should have just been the Woodland Hills people who fight in different contexts to really
encompass all the different mascots. But you know what? I mean, that was 35 years ago. And guess
what? It's Woodland Hills. I don't know. It, it, it, it worked out. Now, I'll point out one,
though, too, where actually you also get a lot of friction on this. And this one is one of those
ones to go on. Oh, so I will point out that where my parents live in Pennsylvania, they're actually
in a small, depressed, old, mill town, Clareighton, Pennsylvania that has seen an incredible drop
of school age population. In fact, K12 is in one building. Okay. One building. And, and that's
uncomfortable. But truly across the line, which isn't far, it's a stone's throw, the neighboring
school district, Thomas Jefferson is thriving, thriving. And you'd look at this and say, wow,
shouldn't the kids of Clareighton that are crushed into one single K12, isn't this time
for a consolidation? Because actually it will benefit the kids in Clareighton to have the
resources that Thomas Jefferson has. Jacob, do you know what the pushback on that one is?
No, but I'd love to find out. We don't want those kids from Clareighton and our school district.
Oh, really? Oh, yeah. You know, they're, they're those kids. This petty squabble, Tim.
It's not even, and I'm being actually even more kind of cagey. No, Clareighton is 95% African-American.
And Thomas Jefferson isn't.
So his children are half. So it seems that we're continuing a negative, negative legacy with
this line of. But I mean, that's, you know, so there, you know, here's where there is just
outright resistance when it would really be a benefit to another group of kids who just aren't
getting the same resources because as we talk about in a democracy that has a public education
system, public education is funded at the local level. And so the idea that there are disparities
in school districts within the same state, yes, that's a reality because there's no tax base left
in Clareighton. And there is a thriving tax base in Thomas Jefferson. And so again, you're,
you're looking at this. But I, I really wanted to say, you know, and this might be hard because
there, there is a Democrat mentioned in there that of course, his arms are flailing about how horrible
this is going to be in Wisconsin. And I know you're scanning it right now, but
you know, and this just made me think it's going, okay, what if this isn't a partisan issue?
You know, and at what point does our partisanship get in the way of making and Johnny would point
this out, decisions that benefit the common good, right? Because that's what it means to live
in a democracy. We want to do what's best for all of the people, our neighbors. And
is this helpful in the sense to say, hey, you know, school district in somewhere in, you know,
Racine, somewhere in Wasa, a couple different schools up there. Would it be better for them to
consolidate, merge, come together, and therefore kind of create more resources for all of the kids.
And I think we need to be at a point to look at this one and say, I don't think this is a
Republican Democrat issue. I think this is a, this is an issue of the commons.
That, therefore, doesn't make the mandate. Now, if this had been a required mandate, we might
have a little bit more to talk about. However, even in this one, I actually, my example of
Clairton and Thomas Jefferson, I actually believe the state of Pennsylvania should come in
and say, you don't have a choice. This is happening, right? However, this isn't what's happening
in Wisconsin, at least according to what we're seeing here with with WPR. It is, you know, kind of
acknowledging the reality on the ground and saying, hey, if you think about this because we
really think you should, here are some resources to help you figure it out. In fact, if you get
even deeper into it, the resources actually are going to be used to help you decide whether or not
it's something you would want to do. So actually, use the resources to understand this problem for real.
And there is a potential that you might come back and go, hey, you know what? Here's how we're,
here's how we've figured it out. We don't have to consolidate. Thank you, legislature,
though, for giving us the resources to do the self-study that was needed for us to actually go,
here's why we actually can make it work without consolidating. So, you know, I just look at this as
going, sometimes things aren't always Republicans versus Democrats, but this to me goes back to
what doesn't mean to live in a democracy. This is where being, you know, savvy with the media
and reading and understanding because, factually, the Republicans did put forth this legislation.
Tim, go ahead, Jake. No, no, no, I'm sorry. Well, I've been listening to what you're saying here,
and I think that consolidation makes a lot of sense, depending on the situation and what we learned
from this article, the fact that it is not a mandate and that it's voluntary, that it's providing
the resources for these things if districts should choose to do so. I think that there's a lot to
that in terms of recognizing the realities on the ground in some of these communities across the
state. And what I would say is that a lot of those things that you brought up as the potential
objections or things that people on the other side of the issue would have as issues with this as an
idea that those make sense to me too. But what I would tell people who are against this is instead of
just ignoring this problem that exists. How about say, well, this is how Democrats would propose
consolidation. This is how a liberal or progressive will propose consolidation work with this idea
instead of just ignoring it. I think a lot of times that's a problem that we can run into or that
people who oppose things run into. There's a quote and I do not know who to attribute it to,
but basically they said that when the reasonable, moderate people in a country refuse to look at
issues, then it's the wacko populist guy who will come in with an idea. Don't concede the issue to
them. Come up with how do we address that? And I think there's a lot of room for people to work
together on this law that was presented by the Republicans in past. I think it is a good starting
point. And instead of rejecting it, just keep building on it and move it in direction in the minutia
that you think it belongs. Yeah. My goodness, Jacob. Why did you let me go on and on and on when
you should have just said that to begin? I needed time. Claude was writing that out. I needed
generation time. Oh, good. Awesome. I love that. Yeah. So there it is, because actually
there are going to be differences of opinions on how to go about the potential of consolidation.
And actually save your differences, legit differences for that conversation.
The fact that Republicans on this one pretty much just called out the facts. Hey,
let's be honest, nothing wrong with that. Now, though, we as democratic citizens have the
responsibility, Jacob, not the accountability, the responsibility to now participate and help
this be the decision that truly does serve the commons, or particularly when we're dealing with
schools, how does it make things best for kids, right? And again, yes, Democrats and Republicans
may have differences of positions of procedures about what's best for kids. But the conversation
about acknowledging the facts on the ground, be real. And let's go with it. And I'd say, hey,
that's what we're all about here. You know, busted pencils, man. Jacob, you know,
democracy's digital asset. We're participating in democracy right now, Tim, because people cannot
participate in their democracy if they don't have access to high quality information and good
discussions on issues that matter. And that's what you get here on busted pencils three times a
week and every Saturday. Man, and with that, Jacob, you know what that means. Now is time for your
moment of sin. I started studying history with one view in mind to look for answers to the issues
and problems I saw in the world about me. Hey, thanks for listening to busted pencils classes
in session. Hey, make sure you hang on for Friday, Jacob, producer's choice Saturday, one full
hour. Yes, busted pencils across all the civic media radio stations wherever you're at.
Come back again on Monday for home room and Jacob, the other thing too. It's the holiday season
everybody. Busted pencils, whether it's Thanksgiving, whether it's the December January holidays,
we wish you safety happiness and just some good old fashioned nice fun with family and friends.
And even your crazy uncle who you politically disagree with, give him a little bit of a break
this holiday season.