February 2016 Meeting--What You Missed

February's meeting was a time to catch up on business and to get to know our members.  We also have a new member, former River Falls School District Superintendent Tom Westerhaus.  Welcome to the group, Tom!

Gwen Paulson, Margarita Hendrickson,
and Evelyn Klein 

Patty Hulne (back turned to us), Evelyn Johnson,
Liz Kreibich, and Marylin Plansky

Bernie Brohaugh chats with Tom and Gail Possley

Margarita Hendrickson and Evelyn Klein

Business

President's Report

Since we will no longer have matching funds from Royal Neighbors to our scholarship fund, we will need to raise more money ourselves.  While our current account balances are fine, we do have $1,000 annual commitments to scholarships and further contributions to other civic causes.  A list of possible activities was distributed.  Members were asked to indicate activities in which they are interested and have potential to be returned to Bernie.

Committee Reports

Legislative Committee (Jane Harred, Chair)


AB 751, a bill that would take money from districts in which there are charters, has been stalled since we reported about it in our meeting.  Executive Director Dave Bennett sent out an email to us on February 17th updating us on the status of the bill.

The proposal to allow cities to seel their water systems to private entities has been dropped.

Legislation is flying fast and furious through the legislature (mostly passed well past midnight without public scrutiny) before the session closes at the end of the week.  See the Wheeler Report for details at http://www.thewheelerreport.com/.

Education Committee (Evelyn Klein, Chair)

• UW System President Ray Cross has made a statement in response to students of color acknowledging the system's shortcomings in meeting diversity goals and vowing to continue to do more to recruit faculty and students of color.
• The Wisconsin legislature has made further cuts to UW Extension that will reduce county agents and researchers in all 72 counties.  Four country quadrants will be formed to save money.  Ruth Wood pointed out that Extension is "non-mandated" for counties, meaning that county boards can decide to support it or not.  Members who value extension agents are encouraged to contact their county board members.
• UW Regents have approved a new tenure policy that allows chancellors to lay off tenured faculty for financial rather than academic reasons and to institute new performance reviews.  

Health Committee

While we haven't had a Health Committee chair for a number of years, health concerns are of interest to members.  Consequently, Tom Possley has agreed to assume the position.

Scholarship Committee (Tony Pedriana, Chair)

Though the Chair and committee members were not in attendance at the meeting, we know that the application process is taking place right now.  The committee will review all applications--submitted under the new guidelines that the committee drew up earlier this year--and will name two recipients, one each from Hudson High School and Prescott High School.

Membership Committee (Laura Zlogar, Chair)

WREA is focused on new membership initiatives, which RFArea REA will review and adapt for our unit.  Since other members of the committee cannot help right now, Marylin Plansky volunteered to join the chair to determine unit membership goals.

Sunshine Committee (Liz Kreibich, Chair)

Members to whom cards are to be sent were identified.  Liz will send cards.

Program Committee (Ruth Wood, Chair)

March will bring a master gardener from county extension to get us ready for spring.

April is a business and get-to-know you meeting.

May's meeting will tentatively introduce us to District III co-chair Darlene Parkinson (appointed last spring, replacing Carol Ballerstein).

June is the winery visit.  Ruth will ask members in April and May to indicate whether they will be attending.  This activity will replace the picnic, which hasn't been well attended in the last few years.

July is not usually a time that we meet, but it was agreed that a field trip to the Pierce County Historical Museum in Bay City would be fun.

August will bring us together to prepare teacher gift packages for a school or district to be identified later.

Archives (Laura Zlogar, Chair)

Ann Krupkat has donated her voluminous records from our unit.  Bernie is going through them to determine what should be retained.

Old Business

As a way to commemorate our members who have passed away, members agreed that $50 will be donated to the River Falls Public Library for the purchase of children's and adolescent literature.  Bookplates with the member's name and RFArea REA will be included in the books.

New Business

Laura Zlogar suggested that we as a unit contribute small sums to appropriate school activities as a way to let ourselves be known to teachers and administrators and to other activities identified by members.  Marylin Plansky moved to donate $200 to Westside Elementary School's Read to Feed program.  Gail Possley seconded.  Motion passed.

Bernie asked whether we were ready to host another meeting of Roger Byers (providing information for prospective retirees).  Since we just did this last year, we will wait at least one more year to do it again.  We will need to plan well in advance for such a meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 12:10 p.m.

Getting to Know Our Members

We have started a practice this year of members sharing a bit about themselves.  

Roger Hulne, new to our group this year, told us a bit about himself.  He just retired from the Prescott School District, where he spent the last 13 years of his career, capping his 42 years in education that commenced in North Dakota.  Roger is married to wife Patty, has six children, and four grandchildren.  Roger stated that when he began his career in North Dakota, he earned $6,000 a year teaching, with an extra $100 thrown in for coaching almost a dozen sports!  With no union at the time, teachers were paid what the principal offered with little recourse or negotiation.

Roger recounted his trip to Madison with a busload of teachers in 2010 to protest the passage of Act 10 because he knew how important teachers' unions are.  He is worried about the future of education in our state and country.  He saw just how difficult it was to hire teachers in foreign language, science, and technology.  With the current climate for teachers, it is only going to get more difficult.

Describing one of his greatest challenges in his career, Roger recounted how he had to close the Prescott Middle School immediately when the district was informed that the air quality was too poor to allow the students and teachers in the building.  Prescott was able to use Ellsworth's middle school, luckily, for one year and then had to relocate to portable classrooms the following year.  He is particularly proud of the fact that Prescott is now building a new $30 million high school that will open July 1, 2017.

Margarita Hendrickson, a member of the RFArea REA for four years, is a retired professor of modern languages at UW-River Falls who has lived in River Falls for 30 years.  Born in Colombia, Margarita grew up in New Orleans and got her graduate degree from Tulane University.  She met her husband, Tom, in Baltimore, where she taught while finishing her degree before taking a tenure-track job at UWRF.

One of the major attractions to Wisconsin all those years ago was the Wisconsin Idea:  "that education should influence people's lives beyond the boundaries of the classroom."  An inspiration of Robert LaFollette, the Wisconsin Idea forged a cooperation between the university and the rest of the state--conservation, industry, civil service, farming.  Margarita expressed her distress at that connection being unraveled in the current political climate.

Having sent both of her daughters to University of Wisconsin campuses, Margarita is worried about what is happening to education in Wisconsin.  With less support for public education in the state, we have to fear for our children's future as well as our pensions.