Schools Fighting an Invisible Foe (Hour 2)

Live, across Wisconsin on Civic Media, you're listening to Mornings with Pat Craiglow powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake Basota studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Craiglow.

Well, hey there, Wisconsin.

Good morning.

It is 606 on this Wednesday morning, June 11th, 2025.

It's another beautiful morning to have you here up north, live from Lake Wissota from wherever you're spending your mornings, listening across the Civic Media Radio Network on the app, social media, podcast, wherever you do it.

Thanks for starting your day right here.

I've got a question for you.

What do you like on your pancakes?

And I know that yesterday we talked about having, you know, maple syrup in your coffee.

Parker Olson's here in Madison as well.

Who is it that had maple syrup in their coffee yesterday?

There's our pop quiz yesterday.

Was it Dan Hagan?

Yes, it was.

It was Dan Hagan's dad.

Yeah, who put maple syrup in his coffee, or maybe he did.

I thought it was him.

I don't know.

Yeah, it could be.

Anyway, so the question is, what do you like on your pancakes?

Well, take maple syrup off.

That's like the default answer.

I'm thinking more like, like this morning, I made him with blueberries for sherry, strawberries for me.

I also like chocolate chips.

When I'm doing chocolate chip waffles, I call them, when I do the chocolate chips in my waffles, they're called chip o' waffles.

Chip o' waffles, see what I did.

Anyway, chocolate chips and pancakes as well.

Thank you.

Delayed.

I'll take

it.

That's fine.

Then there's people, I know people that put peanut butter on their pancakes.

So what about you?

Are you just straight up maple syrup or what?

Usually just maple syrup.

Chocolate chips, definitely number one.

Peanut butter?

I don't know if I've had that before, but I know I would like it.

Like, that just sounds great.

Yes.

Let's see.

Tony says maple syrup, raspberries, and also Alicia's dad and Dan.

There you go.

So there you go.

Anyway, not that he's saying put Alicia's dad and dad on your pancakes.

It's

maybe a weird

pancake.

Yeah, would.

So anyway, having having had a wonderful hot breakfast of fruity pancakes, we're ready to get on with our day here.

How does Parker Olson start his day way before the crack of dawn?

Because I know you drink

Water yeah, so I mean what are you gonna tell me next that you have a granola bar or something for breakfast or anything at all?

I wish it was that good.

I don't need anything for breakfast usually Nothing for breakfast.

It's

pretty rare.

What do you do after the show?

Do you go get like a late breakfast?

No, I usually around oh, I don't know maybe 10 30 11 o'clock.

I'll have lunch

Okay, that's about where I'm at now.

All right Well now that you and I know you're you're still relatively new there at the top of State Street in Madison But do you have a favorite lunch place yet?

Oh, I've only gone out for lunch actually I think once I usually just pack like a turkey and cheese sandwich and call

it Turkey and cheese sandwich.

Oh, yeah, I'm a simple man.

I'm a very simple bottle of water and a turkey and cheese sandwich Yep, and yes kids his skin is as white as it sounds by that menu Yes

Yes, I am.

Borderline translucent over here, but we'll work on it.

We'll work on it.

Coming up on the program today, if you're hearing a sputtering sound, it's coming from Republicans who are stammering about how their big bloated boondoggle of a budget bill doesn't actually cut Medicaid benefits to deserving Americans when it actually does.

Bigly.

In fact, we need to correct our record from yesterday on just how much will be cut from the stable, affordable healthcare coverage that millions of working families rely on for security.

Yesterday, while talking about it, I didn't grab the right word, and I talked about Republicans wanting to cut $600 million from Medicaid.

It wasn't that.

It was $600 billion over the next 10 years is gonna be cut.

By the way, saw a great video clip from Congressman Tom Tiffany here up north that he put out on YouTube in the past day or two.

A fact check on all the things about Medicaid cuts.

I'm gonna be fact checking in the fact check.

in the next couple of days here, you're going to want to stick around for that.

We're going to talk to a Madison area chef later this hour about why so many small business owners want the legislature to knock off its attempt to kill a working program that makes childcare more affordable.

And ask again, what is it that Republicans have against affordable childcare in this state?

We will again this hour torture our poor Wisconsin Rapids friend, Melissa Kay, about her quest for a new

pigeon, complete with new jingle and everything.

In our second hour, it is always harder to defend yourself when you can't see your attacker.

And that is certainly the case for public schools and a lack of transparency about the voucher program.

Because without that transparency, taxpayers aren't able to see how much of their money is being siphoned away to vouchers for well off families to send their kids to private schools.

So, we will talk about that issue, the state budget debate, and other end of the school year issues with Brent Bergstrom, president of the Green Bay Education Association, and Jeremy Trainor, president of the Eau Claire Association of Educators.

And in our climate check segment, in our third hour, Melissa Baldoff talks about transportation secretary Sean Duffy's war on pollution controls for automobiles.

Again, I feel compelled to read that again.

Sean Duffy's war on pollution controls for automobiles.

She also has some opinions on that new Dan Schaefer column.

Remember how much we were teasing it yesterday?

Yeah, it came out yesterday afternoon and it has generated as much conversation as I thought that it would where Dan Schaefer in his column calls on Governor Tony Evers not to run for a third term.

lays out all the reasons why he thinks that Governor Evers has been an amazing governor, good for the state, but shouldn't run for a third term.

Melissa Baldoff, a former advisor to Governor Tony Evers, has some thoughts on the column.

We'll also check in with Civic Media's Earl Ingram, Todd Alba, James Kelly, so much more along the way as well, plus our Scotty Summer Text to Win contest, but you can send us a text right now, 855-75CIVIC.

use that Civic Media app to text us that way or put something in the comment sections on Facebook or YouTube.

That would be the Up North News Facebook page or the Up North News YouTube page or the Civic Media Facebook page and the Civic Media YouTube page.

So, Tony says, what are your thoughts on that column, Pat?

Look at Tony stirring the pot nice and early on this.

Wonderful.

And look at Parker laughing at Tony about that.

Look at that.

He's a pot stirrer.

It's what he does.

He

does

best.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So much like the race for Democratic chair this weekend coming up in Wisconsin Dells, I'm going to play the role that I've always played as a TV anchor as a humble facilitator of discussion and let people, you know, comment on both sides of it.

I haven't, you know,

taken sides in the DPW chairs race.

Those are three very good quality candidates.

I have excellent things to say about all of them.

And there's definitely, there's definitely points to be made on both sides of the question of whether Governor Evers should run again.

I will say, let me put this out for fodder here, because I'm in the minority on what Joe Biden should have done last year.

And I'm sticking to it.

I understand that most people disagree with me.

But just so you know where I'm coming from on this, I don't think Joe Biden should have stepped down from the ticket.

And I hear all kinds of people right now saying, great, well, you know, the Republicans would have like 60 senators right now and all that.

I'm not necessarily sure about that.

I think Joe Biden and his team screwed up how to move forward.

I think Joe Biden should have basically embraced his age and run with it and said, yeah.

I'm an old man.

I cannot run a 40-yard dash right now.

There's a lot of things I can't do.

But look at this team I've surrounded myself with and look at the legislation that I've passed.

I'm the manager of this team.

Vote for this team.

Or here's what Donald Trump would put together.

I think if he'd have gone with a team strategy that would have looked more at that cast of characters that Donald Trump has put together that

Joe Biden probably could have done better than a lot of people are giving him credit for.

That said, I don't begrudge his decision to leave.

I just think again, that was handled poorly.

If he was ever going to not run, and he should not have run, but he should have made that decision a lot earlier, like Labor Day of 2023 so that you could have an actual Democratic primary.

But when you get to this point in the calendar, I mean, you're in and you find the right strategy to go forward.

But he made the decision he made, Kamala Harris, much like Hillary Clinton, both women far more capable, far more responsible, far more qualified to be president.

Frankly, far more qualified to be American citizens than Donald J. Trump ever could hope to be.

But you don't take it on who's most qualified.

You take it on who runs the best campaign, who runs the most negative ads versus positive ads, and who can fool enough people enough at the times.

to get the votes.

And Donald Trump's been able to do that when he's run against these two different women, not against Joe Biden, which again says a lot about our political system today and how we have to do our messaging and how we have to stop letting the bullies win.

And how do you counter that?

So all of that comes into play when you look ahead at questions like, you know, Governor Tony Evers and whether he runs on his record and says, again, look at what I stand for.

Look at the team I've put together.

Again, I'm not here to run a hundred yard dash for you.

Or if he says, hey, I've accomplished a lot.

I'm, you know, I think it's time for other folks to give it a go.

Democrats.

Had a very shallow bench in the last decade after all kinds of folks present company included were bounced from office The bench was real thin it has built up really nicely right now So if the governor decides not to run for a third term there are plenty of people who will be ready to step into the fray and again make the case of who actually is backing

Wisconsin families who's actually backing Wisconsin businesses, who actually wants affordable health care in the state, who actually wants to have broadband extended all across the state, who actually wants middle-class taxes to be affordable, and who doesn't?

Who's been an impediment to all of those things?

I think Governor Evers or any Democratic candidate can make that case next year.

But first, we have to take care of the parlor game, which is, will hear, won't he?

And so, Governor Evers says, once the budget is done, that's when he's going to make a decision and announce it.

And so, we will have to wait until then.

But it's not gonna stop people from talking about it at the convention this weekend in Wisconsin Dells in Dan Shafer's column, as I predicted.

was just the chum to throw in the water, if you will, to get everybody swarming and talking.

I think nobody really wanted to get into it one way or the other, depending on how you feel about it.

And Dan has essentially given everybody permission to go ahead, share your feelings, because you know what, when it's all said and done, let's say it's half the people.

Half the people, you know, on one side of that question or not, are gonna turn out to be having chosen the wrong side.

and they're gonna have to, you know, make that decision to say, okay, that didn't go how I wanted it to go, but, you know, all hands on deck full speed ahead.

Because if not, you end up with whoever wins the Republican nomination for governor next year.

You end up with Robin Voss being the most powerful person in Wisconsin.

Right now, he's the most powerful Republican in Wisconsin.

He's got far more power than you know, Ron Johnson or anybody else, but he's got a governor that serves as a check and balance on him.

Do you want Robin Voss to be the most powerful man in Wisconsin?

That is truly what's on the ballot next year if you think about it.

In sports at 619, Jackson Churio and Jake Bowers hit home runs.

And pitcher Quinn Priester struck out seven in six strong innings as the Milwaukee Brewers beat the Atlanta Braves four to one on Tuesday night.

And Trevor McGill, here's a nice surprise.

He pitched the ninth and got his 13th save in 15 tries.

They will do this one more time this afternoon at 12.35 is when the pregame will start across several civic media stations.

Head over to civicmedia.us to learn much more.

We'll check Brittany Merlowe's state forecast in just a bit as well.

From the heart of America's up north, live from Lake Wissota.

Thanks for making this the place to spend part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Krightlo.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Well, I really got going with that last question there.

So I forgot to get to things like, oh, I know, Brittany Merleau's forecast.

She says multiple systems are lined up and.

headed toward Wisconsin with many rounds of rain and thunderstorms expected over the next few days.

So it's dry pretty much everywhere now, but you know, at least in the northern two thirds of Wisconsin, don't get used to it.

The state forecast for today, partly sunny and warm, chances for light rain, especially in central Wisconsin, highest today will range from the mid seventies up north to the low eighties in the southern part of the state, a northwest wind at 10 to 15 miles an hour.

Showers and storms arriving tonight, starting in West Central Wisconsin, moving to Southeast Wisconsin lows tonight.

In the upper 40s up north, the upper 50s in the southern part of the state and a north wind at five to 10 miles an hour.

And Brittany will join us coming up in our next hour with more about the rain and the temperature changes ahead.

Here's our daily reminder to get our newsletters plural head over to upnorthnewswi.com and sign up for those we've got a new weekly sports newsletter on Saturdays from Christina Laurie and of course we've got my Sunday morning one as well in today's newsletter again she talks about our ongoing pledge drive we do that once every quarter and invite folks to support us you can always click support at the top of our homepage upnorthnewswi.com

She also talks about a website that provides what they advertise as progressive shopping brands.

And we get this a lot when we're talking about certain businesses and other people will chime in and say, well, I don't support that business because they support Republican candidates or something like that.

And that is entirely fair.

And that is a decision somebody can make if they want to.

I don't have any problem with that.

what this website's doing is saying well rather than you know businesses you don't care to support what about the ones where there is a track record of supporting progressive causes or candidates and it again goes through all the contribution records these are national brands by the way and says you know instead of saying it say this hotel chain consider this hotel chain instead so there's a link to that in today's newsletter

There's an article about Swedish pancakes like the kind you get at Al Johnson's and sister Bay up in Dora County the Pancake that's made lighter and fluffier by using less flour more eggs and of course butter and Then finally one that I think we'll have to save for another time Parker, but we'll get into it.

We get into it every so often Where is the Midwest?

In other words, in other words, who is not the Midwest?

And you start with this big old map.

Emma, take out the easy ones on either side, Montana.

No, you are not in the Midwest.

Pennsylvania.

No, you are not in the Midwest.

But then you start getting toward Ohio and the Dakotas and people go, well, is that...

Is that the Midwest?

Are those the Plains?

Is the Ohio Valley?

And it's just, it's the same as what we do when we talk about what's up North.

Yeah.

I mean, what is Ohio?

And I, I don't know.

Seriously, what is Ohio?

What is,

yeah, broadly, what is Ohio?

But I don't, Ohio's in that weird spot.

Like you can't call them East Coast, but I don't feel like they're Midwest.

I feel wrong calling them such as I. I

know.

So there's that in the newsletter today.

I think there's a poll in there about where people see all of these various states.

Again, get that newsletter at UpNorthNewsWI.com.

The Joint Finance Committee of the Wisconsin Legislature was asked to provide an extra way to give better security to judges and courts.

And legislative Republicans

once again rejected a request to create a law enforcement agency to protect Wisconsin judges even though the number of threats against judges continues to climb and despite some high-profile incidents as well not to mention the execution of a Wisconsin judge back in 2022 by a man he had sentenced to prison a decade earlier.

Governor Earl's state budget plan had included a request from the Supreme Court, the state Supreme Court, that would have expanded the court's marshals office into a statewide agency with eight employees to continue to help provide security for justices, for judges, and for the courts as well.

Again, there have been many

new threats.

Democratic Senator Kelder Roy is on the Joint Finance Committee says in this Milwaukee Journal Sentinel story, I'm deeply concerned about threats to the judiciary.

We have an administration in Washington that is using language and denigrating members of our judiciary that we've really never experienced before in this country.

This Supreme Court has made this request over numerous years because they understand better than any of us do what it is like to try to serve the public in this critically important but increasingly dangerous role.

And again, Republicans in the Joint Finance Committee decided against that.

They did provide some extra funding for courts overall and that is not nothing, I think.

I think there's a debate to be had on what you do with existing law enforcement versus creating a new agency.

But in any case, it underscores where we've come in this country at this point that we have courts and justices that are seeing this continued rise in threats and are asking for help.

And they can't get it because at the moment there is a political class in this country that would rather arrest

judges and shackle them, parade them in front of cameras and celebrate that rather than engage in actual law and order.

And that's what I would ask again is who is it that's really for law and order?

Meaning following and adhering to the law versus disruption and ignoring the law and doing things that are extra legal.

Thankfully it was a mostly quiet night in California last night but President Trump continues to provoke and try to exacerbate tensions to the point where there's some kind of violence that would justify violence on his part and none of it has anything to do with actually following the law or immigration crackdowns.

It is all about

having the appearance of and the tools of an authoritarian strongman.

We'll talk to a local chef and small business owner about child care support in Wisconsin next year up north.

Tomorrow on the program, we will have State Senate Democratic Leader Diane Hasselbein.

We'll be joined by Sean O'Malley to talk about your money and the markets.

We'll talk to Chad Holmes, Sharita Booker, all that and much more ahead tomorrow on these mornings powered by Up North News.

Ollie in the Northwoods, I see you up there and unfortunately our phone system is not quite ready yet to take phone calls once again.

So Ollie, we can see the call coming in.

but we can't actually route it, you know, up to on the air, which is why I keep talking about texting all the time.

So send us a text and trust me when the phone lines are ready to go again, we're going to be pasting that phone number everywhere for people to come in.

So I don't have to just listen to myself, you happen all the time.

And according to the text line, one Luke Mather says that once again, instead of saying Governor Tony Evers, I referred to Governor Earl, Tony Earl, no, Tony Evers, but it's always nice to be reminded just how old

I am and how many governors I've seen already.

Late yesterday, I talked to Chef Evan Denelz from Cadre Restaurant in Madison and Lola's High Low Lounge.

He's been one of the folks with Main Street Alliance who's been especially vocal about ways that politicians could be more helpful to small business, more helpful in leveling the playing field.

The classic example that I would give is there's a small business owner that wants to

help his employees and provide, say, paid time off.

But if his competition across the street doesn't do that, he's at a disadvantage.

I mean, he might attract, you know, the better workers, but he's also going to run out of money first, or she as the case may be.

Whereas if you just increased the minimum wage for everybody, or if you had paid family leave for everybody,

Well, that would be good for all small businesses.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

That's the kind of arguments that Main Street Alliance makes and Chef Evan DeNel's makes those as well as a restaurant owner and as somebody who has looked at the issue of child care.

And we know what a crisis we have right now for affordable child care in this country.

And we also know that there's something that would work.

There's a tax credit that's there's there's a

I'm sorry, there's a tax credit that Republicans have put out there that hasn't worked, and there's something Governor Evers has tried that has worked.

It's better to go with the easier, less complex solution, as you'll hear in my conversation here with Chef Evan Donels.

First of all, you've got to back up and get to the root of the issue itself, which is child care issue.

Child care is not a business issue alone.

It's a people issue.

It's a society issue.

People need childcare at almost all walks of life at some point in time in their lives.

A lot of people need it in order to have a dual income household because we all know the single income household essentially doesn't exist at this point unless you are making a lot of money.

So the problem that I have with it is the childcare industry was absolutely gutted by COVID.

It was

already

heading towards broken in a lot of ways in terms of their ability to compensate their employees.

But all of a sudden when COVID happened, nobody wanted to take their kids to childcare because everybody was worried about a virus.

So people left the industry in mass.

And so the federal government and the state government both subsidized sort of their reopening and getting back into the flow of things, which helped bring some people back to the industry.

They never reached 100% staffing levels after that.

And, but those subsidies are a necessity in order for them to provide affordable childcare that everyone can have access to, not just people needs.

And so we run into this problem where we start to have a debate about what the role of government is in these sorts of businesses and.

In my opinion and the opinion of a lot of people, the role of government is to essentially set the stage so that people can have a competitive marketplace inside of any given industry period.

And what we have right now is, if there was profit to be had in this, some big business would set it, but they're not.

Almost all childcare facilities are small businesses run by people who care genuinely about caring for children.

And they're telling you that they can't even pay their employees the lowest wage I've heard of.

on average of just about any industry inside the state of Wisconsin, and they need help for it.

The Republican answer to that is, oh, well, we'll have the employers give a tax credit to make it more affordable for people to be able to afford their childcare.

But the problem with that is twofold.

One, you can't have a single thing like that paint brush across the entire industry.

It's not going to work for lots of people.

We all know that.

The second thing is,

As employers, we don't want to deal with that.

We're happy to pay people and do our business, but that's just extra complications for our world where we're busy trying to do our business as well.

And so from an employer perspective, it's like we don't want to deal with having to try to navigate with our employees how to utilize the tax credit that we're not even positive we worked for them.

Because again, if it had worked before, people would have used it.

And so we run into this problem and there are other states that have done this like New Mexico subsidized child care all the way across the state and right away like employment levels went way up as people who were forced to be single income households could become dual income households again.

You did talk to Eric Gunn of the Wisconsin Examiner and I heartily recommend that to everybody.

And you also gave a response as to why

a tax credit like this wouldn't work it can't be evenly applied because I mean you gave the illustration just of your full-time employees and whether that tax credit would work and certainly not work equitably.

Well and I don't think that it will necessarily I mean it's it's the same general philosophy as running into whether people can write off or they should just take the standard deduction.

A lot of the people in a lot of industries aren't

really seeing tax returns and they're living very hand in mouth and so having the promise and some subsidy at the end of the year doesn't help them get taxed, childcare in the moment.

And I hate

to have this be a partisan issue, but it certainly has become

one.

Well, I'm still not sure how it became a partisan issue because let's backtrack to the Affordable Care Act.

The Affordable Care Act, before it was derided as Obamacare by Republicans, the idea for the Affordable Care Act

actually came from conservatives that said, how about if you make it easier for people to afford private insurance?

And so now you have that.

And that's the model that has been working fewer uninsured people all the time.

So it seems to make sense.

You would do the same thing with childcare, make childcare affordable again.

And rather than trying these complicated tax credits and everything else, I feel like we know the answer here and some folks in politics, for whatever reason, just don't want to acknowledge it.

Yeah.

And when it becomes the same problem of the sort of juxtaposition of

If people can't afford child care, they eventually go broke and then they need to be on state bachelors care and then they become a burden of the state.

But we have to look at child care the same way.

If people's income levels drop below, then all of a sudden they're on bachelors care because they're not paying for their own insurance anymore.

They're on

food stamps because they have to be because they had to try to pay for child care.

Like all these additional costs put people in a system where they end up costing a lot more money than if they were out contributing and generating more tax revenue in the first place.

And this

isn't complicated math.

And you would really hope at the end of the day, the one thing that wouldn't be partisan would be feeding and providing shelter for children during the course of the day.

But as we saw with...

Trying to get free unlimited meals to kids in schools.

We do this interesting job where we're requiring children to be in a facility from ages 5 to 18 But we don't do anything and that's paid for by taxpayer money.

That's called school But we don't provide school for zero through four and it doesn't make any sense there So many mothers are in our on badger care their child is on badger care right after they give birth

for the first year of their life, then they've got to go figure out some way to upend their lives to take care of their children for the next four years before they're mandated to be in school by the state again.

So we should just take care of that all the way through.

And as the player, I don't mind paying additional taxes to know that it's taking care of children.

I don't want to navigate.

an unproven, untested theory about how a tax credit's going to somehow make it affordable for client employees because I'll have to deal with the consequences of it if it doesn't work.

We're talking to Chef Evan Denelz from Cadre Restaurant in Madison about child care and tax credits versus direct support through the child care counts program.

And again, much like the Affordable Care Act or healthcare overall, I keep coming back to this one notion that we always heard from small businesses back then as well.

we don't want to be in the health care business.

And I heard you say earlier, you don't really want to be in the child care business.

So instead of tax credits, help the people who are most in need so that you can get back to focusing on widgets or in your case, running a restaurant, rather than seeing if your employees can jump all the right hoops for people to get a tax credit.

Well, and even

better, do that through the child care facilities themselves.

Why are you making the employer

have to deal with this.

When the one thing that all these people have in common is they're wanting access to childcare, channel that money through the childcare facilities.

They're already heavily regulated.

They're already monitored.

There's a lot less of a chance that it's going to be abused.

It's going to go to the right people and it's going to give people more childcare.

Chef Evan Denelz, thank you so much for joining us and talking from a small business standpoint about the impact of this very important issue.

We really appreciate your time.

Thanks again for having me back.

It was really nice to get a chance to talk to him.

Taking time for I'm sure you heard all the restaurant work going on in the background there at Cadre Restaurant in Madison.

He also has Lola's High Low Lounge and as I was talking to him I was looking at the Instagram page for Lola's in Madison as well and this is where Parker comes into the equation because in in the Lola's

Instagram feed at a Mallards game in the back scoreboard there.

It says, free spicy popcorn at Lola's with your Mallards tickets.

Yeah.

I asked him about that.

He said, we can't even keep that.

That spicy popcorn has become so popular.

It's that's a really good deal.

The Mallards have definitely got some going there.

They do.

I think Culver's free custard if the Mallards score like five runs in an inning, too.

Oh, yeah.

I love all those things, you know, whether it's the Eau Claire Express up here or wherever.

And again, you get you get small business involved or, you know, small midsize businesses and, you know, reward people for getting off their duff, get out of the couch, get out of the house and go to go to a game like this.

You know, do something.

Not everything has to be Brewers Packers Badgers.

Go to go to some of these smaller teams and taking a game there.

Yeah.

How often do

you work all the mallards games?

I work.

usually Friday, Saturday, Sunday, because, you know, Malware's games are usually at night.

And

I get up at four o'clock for the show.

So,

yeah.

Okay.

It's an adjustment, trust me, the early alarms here.

A reminder that coming up later this evening on Nightlight with Pete Schwabba.

will be our own Christina Laurie, who puts together the newsletter for Up North News.

So she'll be joining Pete during the seven o'clock hour, and you can always subscribe to her newsletter and mine at upnorthnewswi.com.

Also ahead, we're still going to have our Scotty Summer Text to Win contest.

Again, we do a different keyword each, well, four times a day.

And then you use your app to text that in to us.

And if, you know, we draw yours that hour, you get that hour's prize, which might be $100.

be brewers tickets and then you're in the running for one of the grand prizes a weekend stay in Dora County or in the Wisconsin Delos area and some gas money to get there as well so again that's the Scani summer text-to-win contest coming up.

Parker, when Aaron Rodgers had his welcome or initial press conference with the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he talked about, oh, being back in football is good for my soul.

Did you catch the other little nugget that he dropped out there?

The married thing?

The thing where he got married a couple of months ago.

Yeah.

That was the most

Aaron Rodgers thing I think I've ever heard.

By the way, I got married.

I don't I don't even know who I because honestly, I haven't cared enough to look at the coverage.

But you know, he's and I say all this.

I mean, I wish him well.

But I also feel like we've simply set the stage for, you know, the next big celebrity break up out there.

Today's history lesson is next as we always do with Melissa K mornings up north and live on the Civic Media radio network.

Melissa Kay is here for today's history lesson.

It's a couple skate only right now, everybody, for Graham Russell and Russell Hitchcock and Air Supply.

Graham Russell has a birthday today, turns 75, and Russell Hitchcock, the other half of the duo, turns 76 this weekend.

So they've known each other going way back.

And I mentioned, of course, last year, taking... Sherry has always been an Air Supply fan and taking her to see Air Supply in Milwaukee last year.

And they're still touring 50 years later.

Really?

Still out and about.

They really are.

Oh, wow.

That's cool.

That's a long time to do that.

I know.

But they look like they're still having fun.

You know, cash the checks.

Here's Melissa Kay from 97.5 WFHR and one of 55 WIRI.

How are you, Melissa?

Good morning.

I'm really excited.

You are?

Yes.

Okay.

Well, let me get through the history lesson first and then we'll get to the stuff to be excited about.

Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones, Tyrion.

He is 56 years old today.

The late Vince Lombardi was born this day in 1913.

And a bittersweet reminder again that he passed away in 1970 at the very young age of 57.

Cancer, right?

You guys?

Guys, you got to get those prostates checked.

You really do.

Let's get back to the music here and go to 1991 and the release of this version of Now That We Found Love by Heavy D and the Boys.

I know this is what you were listening to all the time, Pat.

Yes.

Yes.

This

is his workout song.

Yes, it actually was back in the days when I did this thing called working out.

Yes, it was on there.

This one peaked at number 11 back in 1991.

On this day in 1770, British explorer Captain James Cook ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, technically making him the first tourist, but certainly not the last to damage the reef.

Let's see.

Donnie Van Zandt is 73 years old today from 38 Special.

Donnie Van Zandt was the middle of three sons.

His older brother Ronnie was the original lead singer for Leonard's Kindred who died in that plane crash in 1977.

His younger brother Johnny had been lead singer for Leonard's Kindred since 1987.

And of course Donnie there with 38 Specialist 73 today.

The number one song this week in 1966 was by the Rolling Stones.

You know what?

You know what's a really nice coincidence here?

This too was was on my

I said workout tape, my running tape when I used to run.

This was on my running playlist as well.

I

mean,

listen, can't you just run to that?

You could.

The very, very beginning sounds a little like a medieval minstrel.

Yeah.

It definitely keeps the beat going.

And apparently, we've got agreement from Tony on YouTube.

Paint of Black was one of the best songs ever.

So there you go.

Thank you.

That was 1966.

How about we go to 1977?

when the number one song was by Casey and the Sunshine Band.

American Idol premiered on this date in 2002.

And one last quick note here, Ferris Bueller's Day Off hit theaters this week in 1986.

Here's a little clip of Matthew Broderick leading a parade through downtown Chicago lip syncing to the Beatles.

Parker you you're not that young you've seen

Ferris Bueller's Day on.

I have seen it.

It has been a long time, so don't quiz me about the movie at all.

However,

I

have seen it.

Okay,

and

you skip school, right?

That's the only way to watch it.

I haven't seen it, but I know that much.

Melissa, you've got to put that on your on your bucket movie list.

I don't have one.

All right.

All right.

Let's see.

Parker's going to take the music out because it's time for the the thing that everybody else has been waiting for.

We get to Wednesday morning and people want to know what's the latest with Melissa K in this edition of

Pigeon Quest.

Wow, pre-production.

So much.

It's

so perfect.

When we make time.

You have to send that to me.

That's adorable.

Oh, thank you.

We put all the five seconds into that.

Yeah.

Oh,

it's so great though.

It's perfect.

So what's the

latest on

Melissa gets a pigeon?

I got an email last night at eight o'clock.

Okay.

From the pigeon rescue in Chicago.

Okay.

I have been approved.

Oh, baby.

Look how excited

you are.

She's a winner.

They are confident that I am an ideal pigeon home.

Oh, believe me, you are an

ideal

pigeon home.

Yes.

They sent me, they said, thank you so much for sending the photos of the pigeon cage you prepared in your lovely home.

They think my home is lovely.

Your

home is lovely.

at least what part of it that we can see.

You're

coming out.

I am so excited, you guys.

I mean, outside the camera range, you might be a full on hoarder, but no, I think that's a lovely home.

It's a great looking corner.

That is going to be one lucky pigeon.

But we don't know yet if you're going to get your choice of pigeon.

Well, bell pepper is available.

Bell pepper.

But then so is Princess P, Sam or Thrace.

And then she also recommended paint bucket.

And I'm very curious about paint bucket.

Paint bucket.

Yes, that's the name of the bird and named so for the colorful like it looked like she walked through under a paintbrush.

Okay.

But yeah, so I have to decide.

On the text line here, Laura from Wisconsin Rapids, I can't wait for the pigeon pick up a road trip story.

You have to go get the pigeon, right?

They don't deliver

it.

I don't want them to ship it.

They do ship birds, but that just seems awful.

So I'm going to go get

it.

No, especially when it comes in a bucket.

It's got KFC written on it.

It's just so delicious.

Melissa K,

thank you.

Oh,

we're out of time.

Wow two or more hours of this to goes we get rolling on another one of these Wednesday mornings powered by up north news I'm Pat Crite low.

This is the civic media radio

network

Cross Wisconsin on Civic Media.

You're listening to Mornings with Pat Critello powered by Up North News.

Now, from our Lake WSOTA studio, here is the founding editor of Up North News, Pat Critello.

Good morning, welcome back.

It is 7 0 6.

Nice to have you here Up North on this Wednesday morning.

It's June 11th, 2025.

And still to come, our homeroom segment this hour, we'll be talking to two local teacher union leaders, one out of Eau Claire, one out of Green Bay.

We'll talk about the state budget debate and what lawmakers could be doing to better support our public schools, transparency with the voucher school system and much more as we kind of ramp up the school year and get some people's thoughts heading into the summer break.

Then in our next hour, we will be talking to Earl Ingram.

We'll have Sean O'Malley with your markets and money.

And we'll talk to Melissa Baldoff in our climate check.

She will also be talking in that segment as well, having

formally worked for Governor Tony Evers about the new Dan Schaefer column at the Reconbobulation area that says that Governor Evers did a terrific job, but he should not run for a third term.

And we'll see what Melissa has to say about that.

Meteorologist Brittany Merleau is standing by as well, but first, let's take care of that Scotty Summer Text-to-Win Contest.

You know the drill by now.

We've got a couple more days to play it.

Four times a day you can get a hundred dollars cash or a pair of brewers tickets every entry puts you in the drawing for one of the grand prizes a weekend stay in Door County or Wisconsin Dell's a little gas money to get you there as well a Different keyword each time that you need to text us through the civic media app that you can download over at Apple Google or elsewhere go to one of the stations on the app and Then use the text button at that particular radio station on the app to send us that ours keyword

For this hour today, for a pair of Brewer's tickets, good Brewer's tickets, club level seats, you're going to love them.

For a pair of Brewer's tickets this hour, the key word is beer.

B-E-E-R.

Should have got that Brett Kavanaugh thing out.

I like beer.

So beer.

B-E-E-R.

You have until the end of the hour to text us this hour's keyword.

Your next chance is to play.

Come at 11 a.m., 2 p.m., 4 p.m.

Different keywords each time.

For this hour, the keyword is beer, B-E-E-R, for a pair of brewer's tickets using that Civic Media app.

Here's meteorologist Brittany Merleau now where we said that Tuesday was going to be the driest day and then, you know, the rain comes and then the rain's going to come some more and the rain's going to come some more, but it's not here yet.

And so that's been making for a very pleasant morning here all around Wisconsin, Brittany.

It sure has been.

I mean, it took forever for the clouds to clear out of the entire state yesterday.

I thought that was going to happen much earlier, but it took its sweet time.

Though, thankfully, the sun is shining across a majority of Wisconsin right now.

There is some patchy thick fog far northeast in areas like Shawno, Eagle River as well.

Also a little crisp and cool this morning, far up north, 43 degrees this morning, 70 already into West Bend.

We are looking at temperatures far north making it to the 70s.

and down south into the low to mid 80s.

Now we could see some 90 degree temperatures sneak into places far southeast in the state today.

So really cranking the heat up and the humidity stays on the comfortable side of things.

So a nice day, a lot of sunshine to start the day.

The clouds will be increasing as we move through this afternoon.

We do have multiple low pressure systems lined up and headed towards us.

And it's going to bring some showers and storms.

by around five or six o'clock tonight.

Far west is gonna see those move in burst.

It's gonna spread into the central areas of the state late tonight and then overnight it'll continue to stay in the southern half of the state into tomorrow morning before the rain starts to lift north and it's gonna become heavy at times, far north.

tomorrow throughout the day into our Friday and then it goes drops back south through the state into our Friday and Saturday.

So it is just going to be a wet mess as we go through the end of the week.

We do dry things out in the weekend.

I was really glad to get a little bit of time yesterday afternoon to get the lawnmowed because, you know, again, for anybody who didn't, and if they can't get to it this morning, you know what they're thinking and they're like, I'm going to have to bail this thing, you know, by the time by the time you find a break in the rain to get out there, I'm

looking

across the field here and I'm like, I haven't looked at the stats, but I'll bet second cutting of hay is underway for some folks, maybe already.

And

again, yeah, you have to watch the weather on that as well.

So we'll

keep a

keep an eye on the scratch.

sky and on your forecast.

Brittany, thank you so much.

We'll talk to you next hour.

Sounds good.

All right.

Coming up on the Civic Media Radio Network later this afternoon on the Maggie Dawn Show, she'll have on in the four o'clock hour state representative for Nuka Mayadev on the Democrats bill package that will protect Wisconsin from unlawful federal actions.

We've talked a bit about it on this program as well, saying that if Congress tries to not Congress, if President Trump tries to claw back some federal funds that Congress had already approved previously.

Then maybe Wisconsin needs to you know, not make some of its federal payments And so that'll be talked about Tanya Atkinson from Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin Will be on at 4 30 this afternoon and in the five o'clock hour Barat Ramamurti senior advisor for economic strategy at the American Enterprise liberties project and former deputy director at for president Biden's National Economic Council all about again the ways that there was a

a recovery that was going on.

You know, the best recovery on the planet post COVID.

But it wasn't perfect.

And so Donald Trump was able to exacerbate that and has now put the economy in a near tailspin.

So I'm sure that'll be one of the subjects coming up from Maggie Dawn a little bit later on her program.

Starting at four o'clock here across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Rob, where are my manners?

I let Brittany go before saying good morning from Tigerton.

Hazy sunshine, 57 degrees, five lawns to mow in the Tigerton area.

Yesterday, he had five in the Wittenberg area.

Then says he had lasagna for lunch at Briana's in the Wilderness Travel Center at exit 196.

That's at Highway 29 and 45 South near Wittenberg.

I've stopped there many, many times on the way to Manitowoc and Sherry's Parents Farm.

Said yesterday he had to wear a jacket mowing the lawn early on until the sun came out.

Has a doctor's appointment in Shawno this afternoon.

And he said, get that Super Tramps song.

It's raining again from 1982, a year of awesome songs.

So yeah, maybe tomorrow we'll have Super Tramps.

It's raining again to, you know, keep you company as well.

So thank you, Rob, for all of that.

Just wanted to check through the the text line here.

Oh, a lot of Scotty Summer text to win people.

A lot of people sending beer as the keyword here.

But here it is from Dave in New Berlin.

I heard your thought before the 630 break about, you know, what is the Midwest and what is up north?

And he said, consider this, Daytona Beach is up north relative to Miami.

With that thought in mind, Dave says, how far north do I need to go to be up north?

I thought up north was Wisconsin Rapids.

I don't know if we've ever put Parker on the spot for this.

Parker Olson in Madison Studio A2.

Parker, for you, where does Up North begin?

Where does up north begin?

That is a fantastic question.

And I am pulling up a map right now so I can give you a good answer.

Okay.

Well, at least are you going to say Wisconsin Dells so that, you know, I can pile on or are you going to give me something closer to highway 10 or 29 or something like

that?

I'm going to say north of like north of Minneapolis, basically.

It's like, where

are

you?

Where are you?

We are basically.

Buddy, many apples in Minnesota.

Thank you, Pat.

Thank you for that.

What point in Wisconsin are you up north?

Chippewa Falls is like

my turn off.

Oh, there we go.

The gateway up north.

Sucking up is always rewarded around here.

We do appreciate that.

So you're very close.

Highway 29.

is up north.

And so there are folks in say Wisconsin rap or Wisconsin rap and see the point going, hey, no, we're the gateway to up north.

No, it's highway 29.

You're way.

Yeah, I you know, I don't make the rules.

I only enforce them.

So there we go.

And Tony, of course, Ashland.

Yeah, well, highway two is not our definition of up north for these purposes, unless you live, you know, in an igloo, perhaps

that

is the north of north.

Yes, but yeah, Tony's like, oh, Claire is ours to the south of us.

Well, yes, point well taken, but.

It still is what it is as far as up north goes.

So we mentioned all this because it was in our newsletter today is your definition of the Midwest.

And whether you include certain states, you know, your Pennsylvania's and Montana's is Missouri, part of the Midwest, you know, Nebraska, yes, Kansas, yes, or, you know, at what point are we, are we running out of mid in terms of midwest?

Yeah, yeah, I think Kansas is probably the furthest south I'll go.

I mean, Missouri,

I

guess, dips

a

little bit there.

Not Arkansas.

No, no, not Arkansas.

What?

Okay.

Is that a

thing that people say?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yes.

Uh, Scott in Shorewood, it says, uh, Sheboygan is the way to go on that.

So, and again, if you're in the Eastern part of the state, Sheboygan does make sense.

You know, you're, you're getting there.

But I mean, you still have Green Bay, you know, yet.

And when we're talking about up North, we're talking about really getting out of any potential for traffic signals.

And that was key to Chippewa Falls because for the longest time, Chippewa Falls was the last signal light that you'd hit on Highway 53 before it became a freeway.

And then you wouldn't hit a signal light again until you got off the freeway in Rice Lake or Hayward or whatever.

So you can measure it many different ways.

I happen to choose the signal light and chip will falls.

I did not know about

that.

That's all.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There's going to be a parade in economy walk, of course, like in a lot of other communities coming up for the fourth of July.

But in economy walk, according to a post I'm seeing on the dumpster fire once known as Twitter, in economy walk, they have said that their fourth of July is going to be politics free.

And

Needless to say, in this area of around economy walk, which is quite Republican, a lot of folks are not happy that their legislators, that their congressman, Scott Fitzgerald, that Senator Ron Johnson would not be permitted to march in the parade.

And I have to say that when I first started reading this, I was going to side with the folks who were critical of it, having been in many parades myself.

But then, and this is the twist, Economawoc, the Economawoc Rotary Club came up instead with a different event.

Their tweet reads to underscore our spirit of inclusivity.

We warmly invite representatives from all political affiliations to gather for a special moment of unity featuring the renowned University of Wisconsin marching band.

The band will perform their beloved fifth quarter celebration at the Village Green following the parade, providing a symbolic moment of unity and welcoming participation from all members of our community.

So what they're saying to the politicians is,

If you're marching in the parade, you're inviting people to boo or to disagree or whatever, but come to this moment of unity.

And I would understand if you said, no, no, no, that's not good enough, you know, your representative should be in the parade.

But here's the thing.

Some politicians like to march in the parades, they like to go down the route and shake hands.

There's others, frankly, who don't.

and would be very, we're going to be very happy about announcements like this because first you've got the unity event.

But just as important or more important to some of them, instead of being in the parade where people are jeering or whatever, you get to just work behind the scenes.

You can go up and down the sidewalk.

You can go around the, you know, the barbecue thing, the beer tent, especially shake hands and not have to, you know, sweat like crazy on a hot sunny day in the parade.

So for O'Connor Walk for the Rotary, the fact that they created this secondary event, which then allows the elected officials to just meet the crowd one-to-one instead of in a parade, I don't have a problem with that.

I know other people do and I understand and I'd love your thoughts on it as well.

Should all politicians just be welcome to march in parades and the crowd should just behave themselves?

Or do you like the twist that O'Connor Walk has put on this?

Would love to know your thoughts on that.

From the heart of America's Up North,

truly up north.

Live from Lake Wissota, thanks for making this the place to spend a part of your mornings.

I'm Pat Critello.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

I was just going to start blurting out random names here as people will text in the keyword for the Scani Summer Text to Win contest, which is beer, B-E-E-R.

And so I was just going to grab whoever the last text was and say hi to Don in Waukesha.

But I can't because Kathy with a C came in just afterwards.

So Kathy, hi to you.

Thank you for using the Civic Media app and texting us the word beer in the Scani Summer Text to Win contest.

we were talking during the break about parades and and economy walk and other communities and I was talking about my experiences as a state senator and as a candidate in these parades and I'd be just as happy working the beer tent and working behind the scenes and I shared with young Parker here my my proposal that you make more parades like street festivals uh and again I know there are a lot of people people who are fans of parades you're not going to like me saying this

but maybe you just instead, you know, tell all the groups, the floats and everything, here's where you're going to be on Main Street and you're going to stay right there and the people are going to parade.

Basically like a street festival.

That way if they want to stop and talk to you, they will.

If they don't, they move on to the next one.

You put your craft vendors in there, your food booths, you just make it one big street festival rather than a parade.

Yeah.

No, a lot of people.

And what did you compare it to college wise?

Yeah, it's like the first week of college when they're throwing all those resources at you and they're tabling the bill like, hey, we have universally health services.

We can help you out.

Come on over.

We can get you the party pack here's an STD pamphlet.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes.

Tony, parades are awful.

I said it.

Yes.

Tony, some people, some people do see it that way.

I know that we really overthought how to do parades and that's why we picked what I considered the best parade candy to toss which would be starbursts because they're individually wrapped and so you can just throw like a handful of them out to the kids and you know they won't get all dirty.

There's other things that I see people throwing them and I'm just like

No, I wouldn't throw that that candy.

It's going to get dirty or what have you.

And then there was the politician one year who was throwing out packets of meat seasoning.

What?

I know.

I think you got I think you got a deal from a local meat shop because it was that for.

I don't care.

I know.

I know we were.

The thing is, we were a couple of floats behind.

I want to say this was in Colby, and this goes way back.

And I mean, it just gave us great fodder to talk to the crowd.

We're like, how do you like your meat seasoning?

How does it smell?

Yeah.

It's part of the magic of doing the parades.

That's awesome.

Tony asking, you didn't throw candy cigarettes?

Now, that would have been funny because we were talking about the smoking ban at the time.

And whether to have a smoking ban or not, I can't believe some legislator somewhere who is against the smoking ban didn't pass out candy cigarettes.

That'd be really good.

That would have been so good.

Uh, let's see from, uh, Culver's, this is a story from Jelissa Burns in the Appleton post crescent saying that Culver's is about to debut a new chicken sandwich lineup.

revealing three recipes that underwent years of perfecting.

The Wisconsin based burger chain, she writes, will permanently feature new crispy chicken, spicy crispy chicken and grilled chicken sandwiches, replacing all three of the current chicken sandwich recipes.

Here's where the story gets good.

We just looked at the landscape of all the different chicken sandwiches that are out there, and we just thought our quality could be better, said head of culinary, Casey McDonald.

No.

Yes, yes.

I'm scrolling the story and I'm like, wait, something doesn't seem, why am I seeing McDonald?

And I scroll back up and it's Casey McDonald, head of culinary for Culver's.

That feels illegal.

You can't do that.

It does, but here's the thing.

Now I'm thinking those sandwiches gotta be really good, because how much pressure are you under?

If your name is McDonald and you're doing the new chicken sandwiches for Culver's, because if they're awful, if they're awful, they're like, see, she's doing that on purpose, she's a McDonald.

No, I, now I think so.

First, Tony's got a three part reaction on YouTube as the story is unfolding.

I'm intrigued.

And then a few seconds later, your types.

Now I'm sold followed by take my money culvers.

Yes.

So this will start June 16th.

So that's five days from now where you'll be able to get the new chicken sandwich lineup as, um, concocted by among other people culvers head of culinary, Casey McDonald.

So, wishing you all the best for that.

Another story I want to pass along from the Milwaukee Business Journal, and this gets back into the whole notion of what's happening in the news in terms of the trade war.

And no, we haven't forgotten the trade war still out there, and that there is still so much uncertainty to put it mildly.

And that's the headline in the Milwaukee Business Journal from the CEO of Generac.

who says you simply can't make long-term decisions.

Generac CEO frustrated with tariff policy gyrations.

It says here, President Trump's policies have effectively frozen Generac Power Systems long-term planning for staffing equipment needs and facilities, according to CEO Aaron Jagfeld.

And I want to give proper attribution here.

This was from Rich Kirchin, senior reporter for the Milwaukee Business Journal.

It happened during a Tuesday roundtable on Waukesha County Business hosted by the Journal.

Jagfeld expressed frustration at the ever-shifting tariff policies.

He says, we have to figure out where it's going in terms of just the tariff environment, he said.

I haven't checked my Truth Social Twitter feeds this morning.

Oh, that's an excellent point.

He says it's more than challenging to engage in any long-term planning until there is some level of stability.

He says Trump's goal of reassuring of manufacturing to the United States presents some opportunities, but doesn't make sense in many cases.

as plenty of economists have tried to tell them.

Generac has 2,000 employees at its Waukesha County locations, including the corporate headquarters, offices in Waukesha, and a plant in Eagle.

So again, just more of that uncertainty where even if you agree with the foundation of what President Trump wants to do with trade, it's the scattershot way of doing it.

that just hasn't been good for business or the economy yet.

We've got today's homeroom segment coming up next with a couple of local education leaders here on these mornings powered by Up North News.

I'm Pat Crightlow.

This is the Civic Media Radio Network.

Here's your reminder that before the hour is up, use that Civic Media app and text us the keyword beer, B-E-E-R, that's this hour's keyword for a pair of brewer's tickets.

And you'll also be in the running for those grand prizes a weekend getaway in Door County or in Wisconsin Dells.

Again, use the Civic Media app, go to any one of the radio stations on there, use the text feature and text us the keyword beer before the end of this hour.

And by the way, while you're on the app.

use that voice note feature as well.

Remember I mentioned our phone system is undergoing a little remodeling job right now, shall we say?

So in the meantime, you can text us, but you can also leave us a voice note and maybe we'll put that on the air as well with your take on, you know, the new Culver's Chicken sandwiches, for example, or anything that you heard so far in all the various news stories that we covered or what we're about to cover as we head into our homeroom segment for this week.

where we talk about public education, all of the opportunities, all of the great things about education in Wisconsin, and of course, all the threats to it as well.

And so joining us today, we've got Brent Bergstrom, he's president of the Green Bay Education Association, and Jeremy Treanor, president of the Eau Claire Association of Educators, both our WEAC affiliates, Brent and Jeremy.

Good morning.

Thank you for being here today.

Good morning.

Good

morning.

It's so great to have you both here.

Jeremy, do I understand you're fairly new in the leadership role in Eau Claire?

Yeah, well, I started my presidency, I guess, about 10 days.

So I'm a seasoned veteran.

I'm a science teacher here in Eau Claire, and I've been teaching that I just finished my 26th year, which is why my hair is a little less than normal.

And I've been on the exec team for our union for quite a while.

I was also on the WEAC Board of Directors.

So I have a little experience going into this, but in terms of being the president and the leader of our union, fairly new.

Okay.

And Brent, also of your background as an educator and being active in the union.

Yeah, I'm a music teacher in the Green Bay Area Public Schools, and I have been serving for the Green Bay Education Association as the president for about three years.

I have experienced teaching in Eau Claire, Pestigo and Green Bay.

So I've been all over the place in different different size districts across the state.

Okay, so we're getting into the end of the school year, but we're also still in the thick of the state budget debate at the state capitol So we'll have some ground to cover in both of those areas But Brent I wanted to start with you because we've we've spoken on the program a couple of times here about Green Bay's decision at the city level to put the impact of school vouchers on the actual property tax bills and that

some folks want to make sure that you and your union teammates get credit for that because this is all about

transparency is the way I want to put it.

You know, it's very tough to take on a threat if the threat's invisible.

And it sure seems like a lot of the ways that our tax dollars have been going to the voucher system have not been transparent.

And so you and your team have played a role in improving that, haven't you?

Yeah, I wish I wish we could take all the credit.

We were really a very, very small part of the work that was done.

And we've been talking about it for years.

And finally, the city council did pass a vote to show that up on our tax bills.

So we're really happy about it because the public deserves to know how much money is being funneled into private boucher schools.

And that was, I would imagine

That it was is still a surprise to folks when when people are told by you or others You know again, I think so many people think the the voucher program is still this little experimental thing and For just say the the taxpayers in Green Bay.

It most certainly is not right.

Correct.

Yeah We we lose about 13 million in the Green Bay public schools to private voucher schools.

So that's that's a big big

big ticket item there.

So the big part that usually surprises people is when we say that voucher schools are reimbursed for special education at 90% where public schools are only reimbursed at 30%.

It's clearly not equal.

No, and that actually, that was a story statewide, and I don't know if it was the Associated Press or Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but somebody put out the story and then a lot of other outlets picked it up.

The kind of thing we have been saying for months, if it almost feels like years here, is that disparity in just that area, the special education reimbursement rate.

Jeremy, do you feel the same challenges there in terms of bringing transparency to the taxpayers so that they understand and they can't just say, oh, it's those teachers unions that are

are responsible for our property tax bills.

It's a real messaging challenge for you guys, right?

Well, 100%.

And it's, you know, it's a challenge everywhere.

I think we're starting to get some momentum, just the fact that districts are forced to go to a referendum, you know, every two years.

And then there's a lot of education that, you know, is involved in those referendums just to get them to pass.

But the reality is we're asking our tax payers to fund two school systems and the system's broken.

It doesn't work.

There's no evidence that voucher schools are doing any better than public schools.

It's the opposite actually.

And I think that the public needs to understand how much money they're actually spending on those voucher programs.

So like in Eau Claire where we just passed a referendum in November and it was really a status quo referendum.

just to keep the doors open and we're going to be going back to referendum it looks like again soon we're already facing a deficit and you know that this voucher program is is is killing us so

and even if you

take away the voucher part of the equation if you're just looking at why there are so many referendums and again I feel like the message is only starting to get out that we're talking about 16 consecutive years of underfunding schools compared to the rate of inflation so Jeremy when you say it's about

keeping the doors open.

It's literally that.

Referendums are not nearly as much for, you know, new buildings, new gyms, new remodels, new whatever.

It's to keep the lights on the way things are right now.

Absolutely.

I mean, especially, you know, smaller school districts are literally going bankrupt and then scary.

Luckily in Eau Claire, we have a very supportive community that has been very supportive of our past referendum votes.

So we've been able to at least keep the status quo when we've been able to do some remodeling, but that's not gonna last forever.

Some of our old referenda dollars are gonna be expiring and we're gonna be asking our public for even more.

The funding formula at the state level has to change and our politicians need to get on the same page and fund our public schools.

Well,

we're gonna

have some serious issues

that that would be that would be a lot easier if only we had a budget surplus Brent.

Oh, we do.

It's $4 billion that's sitting there.

Brent, this is not an unsolvable problem in Madison.

No, it's not.

And you know, I mentioned that reimbursement rate before the budget only calls for 60% for public schools again.

big gap there between public schools and private schools.

And we've been told time and time again that the Republicans will not come past even 35%.

They might up it, but only to 35%.

So the discrepancy there between the 90 and the 60 or the 30, it's huge.

And it's, it's not acceptable.

And then we get to the next step.

Which is the enrollment caps because right now there is a limit to how much the the state will

pay for and allow for vouchers for kids to, you know, move from public schools into private schools.

And yet those caps are set to be lifted.

We have spoken to Eau Claire State Representative Christian Phelps about his bill that would keep the voucher caps on there.

Jeremy, Representative Phelps is in your backyard there.

How important is it for those enrollment caps to stay and what happens if they actually are lifted?

I mean, it's vitally important that they stay.

I mean, if they're lifted, we're already experiencing a declining enrollment.

A lot of districts are partially because of the voucher program.

So when these kids leave the public school sector and go to the voucher schools, that reduces our enrollment at the public school, which also reduces the amount of funding that we get at the state.

So it's a huge snowball effect.

not only are we losing money due to the voucher programs but we're also losing students.

How is it in the Green Bay area Brent in terms of the

public perceptions that some politicians, you know, are feeding into like, Well, this, this kind of competition is good.

It doesn't.

First off, should there be this kind of competition?

Second, should it be there with public money?

And third, does somebody have their thumb on the scales of this competition?

But is that still the way it's kind of framed in conversations there, especially involving some politicians?

I would say yes, it always has been that way.

It's been that way since Act 10 with Scott Walker and trying to turn the public against public schools and turn it against teachers.

When it comes down to it though, our union and our district is there for the students, number one.

And we know that the funding is not set up for the success of our students.

It's set up to hurt public schools.

It's set up to cause a bigger divide between the wealthy and the middle class.

And we really just need to focus on getting our money back into our public schools and supporting our kids and our communities.

All right, let's step away from the politics here before we wrap up.

Brent, we're heading into the summer break here.

I mean, do you have any observations on how the year went as an educator, as a local labor leader, and how you expect things to go next year?

You know, this is one of the, I think I speak for most of our educators when I say this was one of the hardest years we've faced between the political climate, things that are carrying over into the classrooms from the political climate across the country.

And just educators constantly being piled on with all of the work to try to move our students forward and being blamed when that doesn't happen.

is a lot for our staff to handle.

Would you share in that assessment, Jeremy, as you look back at this year and what the education environment is like?

Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt our staff works incredibly hard.

Our teachers are dedicated to our students, all students, no matter what their zip code is, we're there for them.

And there's just been a ton of initiatives added to us, added to our plates.

I think we forget that COVID wasn't really that long ago and we're still still feeling the effects of that across the state.

There's achievement gaps.

A lot of social social emotional learning has been happening you know inside our classroom as well that's been adding to us.

Students are just different and technology is different, AI is different and so there's been a lot of things added to teachers plates that were never there before and so

We're working really, really hard.

I'm proud of our teachers.

I'm proud of our students.

We're making improvements.

But we certainly need some support from our state level.

We need some funding.

We need equitable funding practices.

I have nothing against private schools.

But I just don't feel like we should be asked to pay for them as well.

We need to put our funding back into our public schools and take some relief off of our teachers.

Yeah.

And the work is getting done because of you and your colleagues.

And then, you know, on top of the work, all that work from every educator needs some leadership as well.

And thank you both for stepping up and doing that.

Jeremy Treanor, president of the Eau Claire area educators and Brent Bergstrom, Green Bay Education Association.

Gentlemen, thank you both for everything that you do and for taking a little time with us this morning.

Thank you.

All right, appreciate it so much.

Still ahead today, we'll be talking to Civic Media's Earl Ingram about some of the stories that he's following in Southeast Wisconsin.

And we'll be talking to Melissa Baldoff, who normally has our climate check segment.

And we will, of course, still get into some climate check matters.

But as a former staffer for Governor Tony Evers, she's got a few things to say as well about pressure that seems to be coming for Governor Evers to not run for a third term ahead of this weekend's State Democratic Convention.

And that's all in the next hour.

of these mornings.

Powered by UpNorth News on the Civic Media Radio Network, I'm Pat Crightlum.

you

All right, we've got Brewer's baseball this afternoon on stations across the Civic Media Radio Network.

Stop hitting your microphone, Mr. Alba.

The coverage begins at 12.35 on stations in Richland Center, Oshkosh, Racine, Kenosha, Park Falls, and Hayward.

From the text line, Lori and Hayward, can you please shout out the word one more time?

Yes, it is beer.

B-E-E-R.

You've got all of about six minutes.

to send that to us through the Civic Media app.

Use that little text feature.

And also after you've texted us the keyword beer for this hour, remember you can do it again at 11am, 2pm, 4pm.

That would of course include 2pm with the aforementioned Todd Alba, who joins us now from the balcony of his palatial estate in Madison.

You can

I mean, this guy's as suburban as it gets.

If you look very carefully on social media, the

state capital

dome is peeking out his left ear, or it's one of his earbuds.

It could be.

And you got F-35 jets taking off clearly over you as well.

The morning Delta flight, I think.

Wish I were on it.

Where does that one go?

I mean, Madison's got a really nice airport.

I gotta say, Wisconsin itself has some really nice airports.

I love the Milwaukee Airport, but Madison, Moseley, Eau Claire, if you ever

have reason

to.

And Appleton, yes.

If you can plan a trip and take it there instead of having to go to Minneapolis or Chicago and go through all the parking hassles and the lines and everything else, if you've never done that, do it.

You might never go back.