Wag the Dog

Franklin honor rolls

FranklinNOW.com joins parents and teachers in saluting the outstanding students who are listed on the honor rolls of our local schools. Go to honor rolls

If you follow this link you will see a FranklinNOW web page with:

Franklin Honor Rolls

FranklinNOW.com joins parents and teacher in congratulating honor local students who have made the honor roll.

To see which students made the honor roll in the most recent grading period, click on the link below. If don't see your school listed here, it's because that school has not yet sent us a recent honor roll.

We encourage all Franklin private and public schools to email their honor rolls to mailto:honors@mycommunitynow.com

•  WHITNALL HIGH SCHOOL - High Honors (1st quarter)
• WHITNALL HIGH SCHOOL - Honors (1st quarter)
  

If  you notice Franklin High School is not listed on this page.

Nor was second semester of 2007 at the end of the 2007 - 2007 School Year.

From what I understand, the responsibility of getting this information to the press is that of the guidance staff at Franklin High School and they have only sent it to the Franklin Citizen publication as stated below on the FHS web site. 

Does it matter or am I just Wagging the Dog?

Janet Evans has been an exemplary blogger in the reporting of Franklin School Board activities.

As I can not attend all the Board meetings, Janet will be a "Guest Blogger" on the WAG THE DOG when she has a report. With that being said, here is Janet's report on last nights meeting (February 20, 2008):

School Board Meeting – State of the District
by Janet Evans


I attended the School Board meeting tonight and after the artists were recognized in front of a full house, it was asked if there were any citizen comments. 

I took the opportunity to make two comments.  I didn’t intend for them to be made in front of the large group, but so be it.

I addressed the Board regarding my Open Records Request and the fact that I discovered that personal emails had been used rather than District email in some of the correspondence.

I pointed out that Debbie Larson never used District email.  I said that as a citizen, I expect the District email to be used.

I also addressed the Board regarding a blog I had done back in November regarding childhood obesity. 

At that time several people had commented about the fact that our lunch program had some issues, such as Dominos pizza, soda machines, flavored/sugared milks, too much bread and cheese, etc.

 I also mentioned the snack problem in the classrooms and the fact that comments had requested that the Wellness committee needed to be looked at again. 

I then offered a copy of the blog and the comments to the Board.


An important item on the agenda was the fact that the District will be refinancing some old debt in March. 

The debt was at a 5% interest rate, and will now be at a new rate of 3.24%.  This refinancing is going to produce a net savings reduction in the tax levy next year of $766,213 for the District. 

 It has taken 15 years to accomplish this and Jim Milzner was highly praised.


The only other main item was the Superintendent’s report, which was called a “State of the District” report by Dr. Patz:


Exemplary School Districts

Students always come first (plan)

Listen perceptions differ

Monitor programs and practices for effectiveness and value

Operate based on research not opinion or emotion

Commit to intensive staff development

Dr. Patz said our district doesn’t need to be fixed, but we should look to do things better.

Exemplary

Operate with controlled urgency

Communicate effectively (internal and external)

View test scores as only “1” indicator of effectiveness and success

Have a high personal accountability

Have a culture of excellence

Celebrate successes!

Dr. Patz said we have more successes in our District than failures.



”Our” Schools

Many reasons to be proud of our district:

We offer rigorous programs

We achieve at high levels

Our expectations are high

We have very committed staff in all areas

Dr. Patz said we should be scaled up in our programs


Expectations

We can improve in all areas of operation (not a negative)

We have to know where improvement is needed (Data)

We must continually monitor the effectiveness and value of programs and practices (longitudial data tracking)


Student Achievement

Perform above the state average

Adequate yearly progress (AYP) is met in all subject areas

Programs meet needs of all learners (alternative school consideration)

Reading, math and science need attention


District Priorities

Student achievement:  Evaluate consistency and effectiveness through data

Professional Development – putting the best in front of children is a commitment

Land acquisition – A strategic investment

Addressing Funding Issues – This is an entire community issue


Budget

We must first acknowledge that we are a fiscally responsible district!

Programs/practices:  What does the community expect…it’s exemplary schools!

We must take a visionary approach to budgeting , i.e. What does the future require from our schools?


Looking Ahead

The #1 priority must be individual student growth and achievement

Future planning (land acquisition, district needs)

Everything we do contributes to the level of trust and support we receive from our community.

In the past month while I have been on hiatus, I have watched 10 to 12  bloggers write multiple blog postings about him and his "Crazy Right Wing antics" all culminated by a Milwaukee Magazine article which bloggers are still posting about.

FranklinNOW blogger Greg Kowalski had no idea he was promoting Kevin Fischer when he wrote his now infamous post Actions have Consequences where he lists the following blogs that did stories on Fischer:  Musings of a Thoughtful Conservative ,  Folkbum's Rambles and Rants,  Wigderson Library & Pub, Real Debate Wisconsin, Pundit Nation, Inside New Berlin, Whallah! , Blue Racine,  Fairly Conservative,  Blogging Blue.

More recent exposure has been given to Fischer in a Milwaukee Magazine article which local blogger John Michlig's - Sprawled Out blog (which contains 3 recent postings about Fischer) and Greg Kowalski's "I'm in Milwaukee Magazine" have brought to the blogsphere chronicling the tenuous blog relationship that Greg and Kevin have going over a blog where Fischer called Kowalski "Cheesecake Breath". This was in reference to Greg's multiple blogs promoting the Cheesecake Factory coming to Franklin. 

WOW - If people did not know who Kevin Fischer was from his stints on WISN and Channel 10's  INTERchange they will now.  You can't buy this kind of exposure. Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh had his Oxycontin exposure and is still a major conservative mainstay while shock jock, Don Imus was dropped from his nationally CBS syndicate show due to his racial slur comments only to pick up a sweet multi year syndication contract with ABC late last year. 

The Milwaukee Magazine article states:

Mark Maley, the CNI executive who oversees the NOWWeb sites, doesn't see a serious problem. "Even with the skirmishes, nobody's been sued," he says. "It's basically been a handful of people tossing mud. There's been some online behavior that I'm not thrilled about, but the vast, vast majority is pretty positive stuff." Even some of the people involved in the verbal duels have also engaged in enterprising work, like airing details of community development projects or conducting open-records requests for officials' e-mails.

But bad journalism might be what the readers want. "I'm not crazy about it," Maley says. "But the FranklinNOW site has rapidly become our No. 2 Web site rather than 6 or 7."

That is because, thanks to all the FREE publicity, Kevin's blog is getting from other blogers, he is getting record hits on his "This Just In ... " NOW site and Mr. Maley is taking that to the bank.

Kevin has just announced that he will be filling in more on WISN radio and is in private negotiations for the expansion of his roll on WISN Radio 1130.  For those of you not familiar with this type of vague announcement, Mike Gousha spoke of expanded rolls on a local station too, during speaking engagements right before he was back on TV at WISN Channel 12.

Do you think that WISN Radio 1130, an extremely conservative station, would expand his role, if Kevin's opinions did not produce revenue for their station?

That he is/will be attracting the conservative listener just like Mark Belling, Vicki McKenna, Jay Webber and yes Rush Limbaugh is, while this "Get Kevin Mob" has attracted even more listeners.

Does this mean that Kevin will be departing from employment with Senator Lazych?  Not according to a comment he made on "Wigderson's Library & Pub" blog. 

As for comments that Kevin Fischer is "the devil on my shoulder", Kevin writes my blog, I am part of the evil "Team Fischer" and do his biding (yes master), Kevin hijacks my blog, I support Kevin unconditionally,and that I agree with everything Kevin says, are all untrue.

What is the truth is I am a personal friend of Kevin Fischer (personal friends sometimes disagree on issues) and he is laughing because the "Get Kevin Mob" has been .........

This is fresh start, on a new blog, with a new name, that WILL NOT contain the nastiness that has been seen on FranklinNOW in the past.

 I do want to start out with an apology to Greg Kowalski of FranklinNOW, as I know he feels I have offended him in the past with references to his family or person in my past blogs under a different blog name.

• This does not mean future blogs may not be critical of opinions stated in Greg Kowalski’s, Kevin Fischer's or any other blogs on the CommunityNOW. However  I do not intend on posting any hurtful nicknames to those with opposing views. 


• I have learned how to credit other writers when using their writings to stress a point that I wish to communicate to readers.  Some have called it plagiarism; I call it a beginner bloggers error. I will not make that mistake again.


• I still believe in and will blog about, the improvements the School Board needs to make to regain the trust of the Franklin Residents.  In what I write, I hope to encourage fiscally conservative individuals to run for School Board to replace the current members that do not fit these criteria.


• I still believe the current City Council is one of the best we have had in a long time. They are not perfect, but have done much more than past administrations  and the current School Board in trying to keep our taxes in line, despite the issues we face as a growing city.


• I still believe that Franklin has a chance to continue with its development without being dictated to by developers.  But given that developments are money making propositions, Franklin can not throw up too many roadblocks that will send the developers to other communities instead of ours.


• I still believe that what is now the so called Civic Center does not have to be our Civic Center just because we have our City Hall and Police Center in that location.  If we have gotten ourselves into a predicament that we can not legally get ourselves out of, a plan B location should be considered.  


• I still believe that Franklin is a basically good place to live in but has a long way to go.  That we can not waste our time with those who are trying to make us something we are not, “The North Shore” because we are better.


• I still believe there are those that do not live here in Franklin and wish to meddle in our city’s issues. We need to ignore them because they are insignificant and don’t belong here.  I will not tolerate their nasty comments. Hence a delay in posting your comments.

So I still believe there is room for my opinion on FranklinNOW.

Thanks

Bryan Maersch

Why does a dog wag its tail?

Because a dog is smarter than its tail.

If the tail was smarter, the tail would wag the dog.