Emails: Racine’s Mayor Mason And Teachers Union Worked Together On School Choice ‘Misinformation’ Campaign

This is pretty outlandish.

MADISON, Wis. — Racine Mayor Cory Mason and city officials coordinated with the school district and the local teachers union on what critics say is a misinformation campaign about the Racine Parental Choice Program, according to internal emails obtained by the MacIver Institute.

The communications expose how integrally involved in the campaign Racine Educators United was, calling meetings with city officials and calling some of the shots on the information literature.

A Racine Unified School District official, when told of the communications, said she was “unaware of the intricacies of the back and forth” communications involved.

In its latest round of property tax bills to homeowners, the city of Racine included an insert claiming that one-fifth of Racine’s property tax levy goes to private voucher schools in the school district. The point of the insert: Let Racine property taxpayers know just how much money the school choice program is siphoning from the public education system.

Except, the accusation is spurious.

The message is, at best, misleading, dismissing some important facts, as Ola Lisowski reported in a MacIver Institute analysis on Tuesday. In fact, the actual property tax levy for parental choice private schools is 5 percent, when calculating the millions of dollars more the district receives in general school aids — thanks to the school choice program. By law, the state must hold traditional public schools harmless from the financial impacts of students leaving their systems and moving into choice schools.

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Also:  The City of Racine Lied About School Choice

St. Catherine's in Racine to create STEM lab with $500K grant from SC Johnson

RACINE — St. Catherine’s High School has plans to create a science, technology, engineering and math lab with the help of a $500,000 grant from SC Johnson.

The grant will support the high school, one of the Siena Catholic Schools of Racine, in creating learning environments that aim to best prepare students to integrate into a rapidly changing workforce.

“Our goal at St. Catherine’s is to prepare our students to be college, career and community ready upon graduation,” stated Todd Willems, Siena Catholic Schools of Racine’s chief academic officer. “Creating a well-rounded STEM program, complete with a highly functional STEM learning space, provides opportunities for our students to tackle rigorous real-life problems in creative and collaborative ways — preparing them for any career path that they may choose to pursue.”

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Preparing for Siena Catholic Schools: Catholic schools grading and assessment evaluated

RACINE — The Siena Catholic Schools of Racine group is making some final adjustments before it becomes fully implemented in July. Recently, grading and assessment have been put under the microscope.

Teachers and administrators have been participating in multiday professional development sessions in order to learn better practices and techniques to help with student growth.

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has distributed assessment and grading “guidelines” to teachers and principals in an effort to improve student achievement.

Brenda White, president of Siena Catholic Schools, said an archdiocesan task force was created to evaluate the best grading and assessment practices for teachers, and has been involving local schools in the discussion.

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Abp. Listecki explains big changes to Racine area Catholic schools

RACINE — Starting in the 2018-19 school year, Racine Catholic schools will be part of a the new St. Catherine of Siena School system, which will involve the Archdiocese of Milwaukee hiring three new administrative positions. The five Racine area Catholic elementary schools along with St. Catherine’s Middle and High School are going to be part of the system.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki made the announcement to pastors, principals and trustees in a closed meeting at Sacred Heart Catholic Parish, 2201 Northwestern Ave., on Wednesday, following similar announcements recently made at other parishes.

The change comes after months, and in some respects years, of planning the realignment in effort to boost enrollment and overall quality of Catholic education.

Listecki said increasing costs and shifting demographics have weighed heavily on local parishes.

“We always have to make Catholic education accessible and affordable,” Listecki said. “What this does is it helps to promote those two qualities.”

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Kenosha's All Saints a possible model for Racine Catholic schools

In 2011, Catholic schools in Kenosha began a “regional” school model that had an effect on every parish school in the city.

“At that point, there were four parish schools still operating in Kenosha and those schools closed, and the regional school opened,” said Jackie Lichter, principal at All Saints Catholic Schools. “It was a difficult time for families in Kenosha when their parish schools closed, there was a lot of sadness … Initially when I was hired in April (2011) we didn’t have one student enrolled because no one knew what was happening. When we opened our doors in August we had 450 students enrolled.”

It took years and multiple tries, Lichter said, before the All Saints regional school model was implemented in Kenosha.

It’s possible a similar model may come to Racine as the Archdiocese of Milwaukee continues to work on a Racine Catholic Schools Collaboration system.

Amy Grau, communication director for the Archdiocese, said officials continue to have discussions with area schools and parishes and anticipate a final plan to be proposed to Archbishop Jerome Listecki in May.

“That plan will detail governance, academic and financial details for the new system as well as recommend an overarching name for the system with each school retaining its own identity,” Grau said. “In the meantime, while that plan is being finalized, a national recruitment search has begun for the position of president of the new school system for Catholic schools in Racine.”

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Racine Catholic Schools Collaboration seeks name input

RACINE — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee, along with the Catholic schools in Racine, are seeking input as to what to call the new Catholic school system.

Parents and stakeholders have until Friday to complete the survey online at racinecatholicschools.org.

This is just one step in a process that is slowly changing how Catholic education in Racine will look in the coming years, according to school administrators and the archdiocese.

“We’re hoping to accomplish a better educational experience for all of our students,” said Bruce Varick, principal of Our Lady of Grace Academy, 1425 Grove Ave. “All six schools are going to continue their unique identities.”

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