The Referenda

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Bob Soldner joins me to talk about how "district reorganization" processes work -- when districts dissolve or multiple districts consolidate. What should community members know? What does the state require district leaders to take into consideration? What happens to property taxes?

TOTALLY UNRELATED TO UPCOMING ELECTIONS in any district! But this is where I look closely at Waukesha to see the sense that their recent structural and financial decisions have made, and to see how their constraints and affordances match up with our situation here in Tosa. LINKS! Waukesha's own pla…

From Monday night, February 2nd -- there's also a video recording if you prefer. I mainly wanted to get some clean audio out in public. Here are campaign websites for residents to visit -- in seating order, left to right, on Monday night: Heather Birk Liz Heimerl-Rolland Todd Koehler Melissa Lamers…

HOUSEKEEPING! There's a school board candidate forum happening Monday, March 2nd, 6:30-8:30 at Longfellow. If you can't make it in person, register for the Youtube livestream! References in this episode: Calarco, J. (2018). Negotiating Opportunities Calarco, J. (2024). Holding It Together. Daminger…

Tuck your pants into your socks, nerds -- We're going into the weeds on public finance, budgeting processes, democratic involvement, and community building! This is a conversation with CUNY's Celina Su, author of the newly-released Budget Justice: On Building Grassroots Politics and Solidarities, a…

CORRECTION: At one point in this episode, I say that the 2024 operating ref was "2m for curriculum, 8m for teachers, and 54.4m" to cover deficits. 8m for teachers is correct, but it was 4m for curriculum and 52.4m for deficits. This episode reviews some basic facts about these three impor…

LINKS to background information for the survey: 1.) The Tosa 2075 Task Force website. 2.) The Tosa 2075 final report. 3.) The district's long-range facilities plan (adopted 2024) 4.) The current ad-hoc facilities committee website, incl minutes and detailed model summaries (at the bottom). 5.) Seco…

LINKS: Ad Hoc Committee page (scroll down for current models) WI State Report Card weighting calculator Growth Score calculation specs Target Group Outcomes explanation Tosa's district- and school-level report cards Nativity Jesuit Academy's report card

Dr. Amanda Lewis is coming to Wauwatosa to give a talk based on her book, Despite the Best Intentions, whose 2nd edition just came out this year. EVENT INFO: Where: Underwood Elementary When: Monday, October 20th, 6:30 to 8:00. What: A talk, followed by a Q&A session. If you'd like to pose a qu…