In the face of failures to confront a refusal to follow local health orders and spiking covid-19 numbers, it is not the right time to force our schools to bear the in-person burden of thousands of more students.
Every now and again, a work of art can fit a moment in time in such a precise manner that it’s difficult to imagine that it was written for anything else but the situation you find yourself in. I’ve been a long-time fan of Pearl Jam, specifically when it comes to the band’s ability to fashion evergreen lyrics that can function as a cultural artifact (Pearl Jam is the only band to have survived the grunge scene of the 1990s) as well as appear prophetic (1992’s “Jeremy” covered child abuse and school violence before the nation paid attention to regular school shootings, 2006’s “Inside Job” functions as a metaphor for a collapsing individual against an impending economic collapse years before the 2008-09 recession and mental health crisises, etc.).
“Sideways talk poisoning our thoughts… everyone walks and it’s no one’s fault…”
The lead track off Pearl Jam’s 2020 album “Who Ever Said” fits our community in this stunning manner. The line “Living forwards in a backwards town…” could probably have been written about a thousand different small towns in America, but it fits our community perfectly.
From the outset, I’ve openly noted throughout my time on the Waunakee Board of Education that this community epitomizes “Midwest nice”. Which unfortunately ends up translating to “sometimes not particularly nice” to outsiders. It certainly can be one of most passive aggressive places I’ve ever lived. From the day I started working at Donna Kuehn’s law firm downtown in 2010, I’ve been asked “Are you related to anyone from the Village?” more times than I can remember. AndWhen I moved to Westport in 2013, the person we purchased our house from told several neighbors I was a “jew who was just going to flip the house”. I’ve been told several times that I shouldn’t even bother to start a business here unless I joined the Chamber of Commerce and received their blessing (I can’t begin to even know what that means). I’ve been called a communist, a N***** lover, and “a Donald Trump lover” with “blood on [my] hands” for sending kids back to school. Among other pleasantries.
So maybe it’s not all that passive.
Regardless, “sideways talk” is not surprising. It is exactly how I would describe a community that is educated and intelligent enough to understand its own relative privilege in the world while being unable to confront its role in a rapidly changing Dane County. This community is full of good people; That doesn’t mean it was prepared for the challenges it faces today. In other words, I think we understand problems quickly, but we fight against the better angels of our nature. From the day I set foot on the Board, both the district Superintendent Randy Guttenburg and then-President Joan Ensign told me that the biggest issue facing the WCSD would be one thing: change.
“One bad ear and one eye blind
It takes a village, but don’t take mine
Living forwards in a backwards town
The covid-19 pandemic has forced change on our community at a break-neck pace. Given the area’s reluctance to change quickly, this has not come without pain. I’ve heard from countless individuals over the last eight months that they cannot wait to leave Waunakee. Some people in the community have said they are tiring of the entitlement, the petty provicialism, and the in/out exclusivity makes a mockery of the well-intentioned “be kind” mantra that you hear so often. One example (out of many) that was related to me came from a colleague who has asked to remain nameless, but consented to me sharing her story. When she suggested that a group of women in business not choose a packed local wine bar for a group meeting, she was told to “stop being such a coward”. She was later asked to no longer attend group meetings. Indeed, choosing to not drink indoors during an airborne pandemic is considered by some to be a sign of weakness. Indeed, the commandment to “BE KIND” can be less of a gentle suggestion, and more of an esoteric way of saying “SHUT UP.”
“Home is where… the broken heart is…. Home is where… every scar is….”
When the Waunakee Community School District’s BOE voted on October 5, 2020 to confirm its plan to return 3rd and 4th grade students to in-person hybrid school, it did so with effectively the following understanding:
1. Students in 4K to 4th grade are effectively “cohorted”. This means that small groups (of approximately 10-12 students) would only be grouped together at any given time. The purpose of the small groups is to limit the possible spread of covid-19 to larger groups, and would thus allow the district to have classes flip into quarantine status to avoid exposing the school or district as a whole. Since kids up to around 5th or 6th grade stay in the same groups with each other, this was easily doable.
2. Students would NOT participate in specials in person. This means that subjects like gym, art and music. This protects our non-classroom staff from being exposed to any positive cases among students, which would deprive ALL students of teachers in those specials. This really only works at the K-6 level, mind you.
3. Students at this grade tend to have fewer symptoms of covid-19 and appear to not fall as ill as older patients (which I won’t go into detail on because it is beyond my expertise). Further, they are more easily controlled. In short, it’s a bit easier to enforce contact and rules for kids at this age than it might be for teenagers and high schoolers.
Today, we have to decide when older kids get to go back to school in person. I want them to go back as much as anyone. But how can we do this when the real support our teachers need is so fleeting? Parents have sent me dozens of emails demanding a change in Wednesday no-class schedules. Why has no one bothered to ask the teachers why Wednesdays are so important? (Spoiler alert – they help teachers provide a quality educational product). How can kids go back when their desires for normalcy have led to repeated reports of parties, gatherings, meetings and widespread non-compliance with legal health orders? How can we countenance sending high school students back to in-person school when they already are the most covid-infected demographic in the school district while in near 100% virtual learning, while some of them already are openly ignoring the rules we would have them follow when back in school?
“Our freedoms fraught with danger being circumscribed… A life cut short and circumcised….”
Today, the BOE plans to vote on a return to in-person schooling for 5-6 (intermediate), 7-8 (middle) and 9-12 (high school). These groups are not at all alike. Return to in-person plans have been posted by the school district and need not be re-shared here. Instead of detailing the many issues with these plans, I feel obligated to openly acknowledge the great efforts made by district staff to provide a high quality education to all students while they learn virtually. This page will post stories of these efforts over the next week. The stories have one thing in common: the school district is populated with compassionate individuals acting against their own self-interests to better their community.
Because that is what teachers do.
I find it necessary to rebuke some of the criticism that school district staff has received and return fire on those that are not doing what is needed to end this pandemic and be the community that we all like to pretend we live in. If we’re interested in freedom and choice for our students, we need to come together as a community and make the decision to call out those who put all of our health at risk.
“You used to let it go and let it float away… You don’t get to speak with twice as much to say.”
Many of the same people who are most critical of the district openly refuse to criticize those who flout public health orders. What message does that send to the teachers who are expected to start working with our kids in person? Since the onset of this pandemic, most teachers are doing what is essentially twice the amount of work, reworking their lessons, learning new electronic teaching methods, and to be doing it without any of the intrinsic value they may have previously derived from their profession. There are no hugs. No high fives. No apples left on their desks. They’re struggling on towards an uncertain future for a paycheck and the occassional thank you. They have done all this, largely without complaint, in the face of the following:
- Increased risk to their own physical safety;
- Increased risk to the physical safety of their family members;
- Increased stress and anxiety at the possibility of harming their students accidentally through virus exposure;
- A lack of support, both from some in the community, as well as ignorant comments made by most everyone, up to an including BOE members (I include myself in this and consider myself guilty as charged);
- A decreased level of social support, from the loss of contact with colleagues, loss of in-person professional development, to the loss of day to day interactions with friends and family that would otherwise inure a staff member from some of the normal stresses of day to day life;
- Zero increase in compensation beyond cost-of-living adjustments.
When the school district voted to return K-4 to school in person on August 3, 2020, the 7 day case average of new positive covid-19 cases in Dane County was approximately 45.
On October 5, 2020 the rate was nearly 110.
Today, the case rate is nearly 300.
If we were uncomfortable with going back in person in August – how do we feel about going back now?
“Room to tomb, cradle to grave
All the answers will be found
In the mistakes that we have made…”
In spite of these objective facts, those advocating for a return to school have not adjusted their expectations with the changing reality of this pandemic. This point cannot be overemphasized, that in the face of enhanced risk, the advocacy to increase in-person contact has actually increased dramatically. The demand for a return picked a start date of December 1, 2020. In short – this goal is unrealistic, dangerous to the grades that have already returned in person, risk the educational well-being of the students that would be set to return, and ignores the fiscal, psychological and structural consequences on the district – all in favor of a plan that is well-intentioned but lacking in the full rigor we’re hoping for. While I feel the district is well-suited to keep staff and students safe, the level of community spread of covid-19 that we are seeing may have expanded beyond the district’s ability to mitigate these risks. That may change in the coming weeks, but now is not the time to tempt fate.
I raise these issues now because it has become abundantly clear that our community is not pulling in the same direction. I’ve received written confirmation that local law enforcement is not enforcing public health orders in any meaningful way. This is not the fault of law enforcement. Waunakee has passed nothing in support of local health efforts or covid-19 remediation. When members of a local Facebook page criticized a local restaurant for allegedly sending employees in to work while sick with covid-19 and failing to inform consumers, the local Chamber of Commerce openly attacked… the Facebook page, calling it a “vile place”. This being the same Chamber that pushed a resolution earlier this year to support F35s in Madison. Yes – we can pass a resolution to support noise pollution that disrupts the lives of the poor people living off Sherman Avenue and Northport Drive (how’s that for being a good neighbor?). But advocate for sensible local rules to both help business and keep them honest? This is the same area that passed virtual bans on Air B&B’s only a month or so after one homeowner received a modicum of complaints. As a reminder – none of the local municipalities have passed anything to directly battle covid-19 (not counting Madison or Middleton). Not a stimulus to help local laid-off workers. Not even a resolution to advise the community to stay home and look out for one another. Not even an ordinance to prevent open violations of public health orders.
Forgive me, but selfish, dangerous behavior that spreads a deadly virus is far more vile than any Facebook page. Governmental inaction deserves criticism; not a harmless Facebook page.
In the face of the abject local failures to confront those who refuse to follow health orders in the best interests of the community, now is not the time to force our schools to bear the additional burden of thousands of more students in person. If virus numbers had gone down at all in the last two months, I would likely not feel this way. But amongst repeated reports of packed bars and supper clubs and other establishements up and down Main Street, the best the community has offered to battle covid-19 is a five-figure advertisement deal to “Get Out And Try” Waunakee and hundreds of thousands in TIF money to companies that don’t need it.
If this is the #waunakeeway, we should be embarasssed. We can do better.
I love our community. I wouldn’t criticize it if I didn’t care. But now is not the time to get out and try anything. It’s time for many of us to stay the hell at home.
In short, if you are reading this and you care about getting our community to a safer place, and if you want all our students to get back to school as soon as possible, I implore you to do the following:
1) Email, call and write to your Town and Village Board trustees and demand that they pass a local ordinance to enforce public health orders and sanction individuals and establishments that are violating the legal county health orders.
2) Tell the Waunakee Village Board to stop approving cash giveaways like the Octopi TIF amendment when local businesses are suffering. Stop spending on advertising. Directly assist local workers who have been negatively impacted by the covid pandemic. Make this assistance contingent on following health orders and directly helping the people who have been laid off or are struggling to make ends meet, unlike the Rally Around Waunakee cash transfers (another Chamber of Commerce venture) that funnelled donations from sports boosters directly to business owners without any significant requirements or disclosures.
3) Stop doing non-essential activities. Cancel your Thanksgiving plans. Get take-out from a local place and make a donation to the Waunakee Neighborhood Connection.
Waunakee & Friends 