Cause and Effect - Franklin, WI

By Jeff Simpson 

By now, most of you have heard that the School District of Franklin, WI is under fire for disgusting racist acts! 

Franklin High School administration is investigating a complaint that inappropriate and racist conduct occurred during a boys’ basketball game last night and have been in contact with Racine Horlick leadership today.
An administrator immediately responded to the spectator complaint and a student in question was removed from the gymnasium. This matter remains under investigation.
Franklin Public Schools does not tolerate discriminatory or harassing conduct by students at school, at school sponsored activities and events, or otherwise.  

Sorry Charlie, I would love to believe that is your policy, EXCEPT for one big problem.  You recently put Larry Gamble on your School Board.  

For those who do not remember, Larry Gamble is one of the driving forces behind Verify the Recall, which was a wesbite set up for the sole purpose of  - discriminatory and/or harassing conduct, towards anyone who felt the need to practice democracy in a way that Larry Gamble did not like.

The website, Verify the Recall, seems to be so flooded with hits that searching the database for even one name can take hours, proving again just how consumed people are with the recall.
"In the first 20 minutes, we had about 50,000 hits," Larry Gamble, spokesman for Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty. "It has not let up."

Wisconsin Grandsons of Liberty is a far right extremist group that claims to be non partisan but only supports the furthest right of candidates and bills.   

As readers of our humble blog know, there is more - there is always more. 

There is most definitely more to Larry Gamble. 

After the peaceful protests of 2011, Gamble did ORR on over 50 school districts to get them to release private personnel files of teachers who were absent during the protests in Madison. 

Gamble, wanted to make sure any teacher who missed those days would be harassed, threatened and branded!

    Larry Gamble, a retired pilot and Tea Party member from Franklin, estimates he filed about 50 records requests, including one for the names of Madison teachers who called in sick.
But legal counsel Dylan Pauly said the district doesn't want to release the names after board members and administrators received "a number of threats" against themselves and district employees.
In the most serious incident, a parent was charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct for a voice message he allegedly left on a middle school's general mailbox.
According to a police report, the parent was upset about school being closed and left a message saying, "I'm gonna come down there and punch you guys right in the face."

Mission Accomplished Mr. Gamble! 

Cause and effect, chain of events, all of this chaos makes perfect sense!

When you realize you have one of the master harassers in Wisconsin history, who has a history of racism, sexism, and bullying in his past, appointed to a School Board, then incidences of harassment, racism, sexism and bullying start to spike.   

We need to work to fix this and educate the misguided youth of Franklin, but the first step in stopping this is to stop acting like we are surprised. 

Cowardice as an Art Form - Updated!

As Paul Ryan (R-Wall St.), has been saying, "courage is on the ballot".  Scott Walker and all of his supporters failed massively in Janesville(ironically Paul Ryan's home town) over the weekend.  This full page advertisement appeared out of the blue ON people's Janesville Gazette all over Janesville.

For those that can not see, it supposedly lists all of the teachers in Janesville who signed the recall petitions, and their salary and then has a form to sign on the bottom asking to opt out of these "radical teachers" classroom.   They then use Verify the Recall as their source.

And who put out this ad, calling teachers out by name and salary?  Why the people are anonymous of course.  

Scott Walker and his cronies have outdone themselves this time.  Their cowardice, attempts to Bully and Intimidate and  Divide and Conquer are on display for everyone in Wisconsin to see.   When you see the kind of people the Walker brigade are, you realize it is not a pretty sight!  

I guess Paul Ryan supports Tom Barrett after all.  

Do not worry, we at Cog_Dis will continue investigating until we find the cowards behind this ad!!    if you have any information, let us know!

Stay Tuned!   

UPDATED:  The Janesville Gazette brings us more to this story and a little about who was behind it:

Citizens for Responsible Government, also known as CRG Network, filed a freedom of information request with the School District of Janesville on March 29, said Brett Berg, spokesman for the district. Those figures were used to create the flier, said CRG Executive Administrator Chris Kliesmet.

"The group and its representative, Orville Seymer, filed a freedom of information request for a list of all Janesville district teachers, their job titles and annual salaries," Berg said.

When contacted by The Gazette, Seymer said he knew the names of local participants but was asked not to release them.

"They want to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation," Seymer said. "However, this is all public information."

The flier lists the names and salaries of 321 teachers whose salaries range from $59,344 to $75,695. The district employs 765 teachers; the lowest salary is $34,676.

"We did most of the grunt work at the request of people over there," Kliesmet said. "We did the freedom of information request and gathered the data. People in the area printed the flier and distributed it."

At least Superintendent Karen Schulte stepped up:

Schulte said she was shocked when someone showed her the flier Saturday. She said it was interesting that she saw the flier at Craig High School, where 400 people—including teachers—were volunteering to package food to be sent to feed the hungry in Haiti.

"I think it's wrong to go after any group that has an honest profession," Schulte said. "I don't understand where this intense anger is coming from."

so while this hate group was distributing anonymous hate fliers over the weekend,  the teachers that they are attempting to demonize were busy organizing a food drive for the people of Haiti.   Nuff Said


One last thing though, about those exorbitant have's of the Janesville School District:

 Only two teachers make more than $74,000. Salaries are based on a salary schedule that awards pay raises for years on the job to a maximum of 17 years and for continuing education up to the doctoral level. Teachers pay out of their own pockets to take the graduate courses. Teachers also receive extra pay for additional duties, such as coaching.

 765 teachers in the Janesville School District and only 2 make more than $70/k year.  The nerve of them...

CRG contact info:

 crg@crgnetwork.com   |   414-801-0800