Tag Archives: Franklin Board of Education

No Jeff Traylor but Deb Larson and Melissa Klein Run Again for School Board

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Under state elections law, candidates who do not intend to run for the office they currently represent are required to file a Notification of Noncandidacy no later than 5 p.m. on the second  Friday before the filing deadline for nomination papers and other ballot access documents.  This year the second Friday was December 21, 2012.  If the incumbent failed to file the Notification of Noncandidacy by December 21, 2012, and did not file ballot access documents to run for their current seat, the filing deadline is extended 72 hours for any other candidate for the office under extension, except for the candidate. One of incumbent Board of Education  officeholders did not file, that person was none other than Jeff Traylor.

Board of Education candidates were required to submit their paperwork by 5pm Wednesday January 2, 2013. Since Jeff Traylor did not file his Notification of Noncandidacy at all, persons wishing to file candidacy for the BOA office can now do so until Monday January 7th at 5pm.  Under the law, neither Traylor or any other incumbent can file from this point on. That would include David Works or Judith Bialk. Only new candidates for the office can still file.

Currently incumbents Debby (it’s not fair I am not board president) Larson and Melissa (I love to spend your money) Klein have filed papers for candidacy along with new comer Alan Aleksandrowitz. That would make it a shoe in for the two incumbents without a need for any campaign.

Here is the email I received from Meghan Dade, our district’s Communications Coordinator for FPS after I inquired about an extension posted on the FPS website:

From: Dade, Meghan [mailto:Meghan.Dade@Franklin.k12.wi.us]
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 2:17 PM
To: MAERSCH, BRYAN
Subject: RE: Board of Education Election 

 Mr. Maersch, 

As of the filing deadline at 5:00 PM yesterday, the following have submitted papers for the April School Board Election:

  • Alan Aleksandrowicz
  • Melissa Klein 
  • Debbie Larson 

The third incumbent, Mr. Jeff Traylor, did not file papers and did not complete a Declaration of Non-Candidacy by the deadline in December, and as such we are required to extend the deadline for other candidates to file papers. The deadline is now extended until Monday, January 7th at 5:00 PM.

 Thank you,

 Meghan Dade

Meghan Dade

Communications Coordinator, Franklin Public School District

8255 West Forest Hill Avenue  Franklin, WI 53132

Meghan.Dade@Franklin.k12.wi.us

From: Bryan Maersch
Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2013 1:59 PM
To: Dade, Meghan
Subject: Board of Education Election

Meghan,

I saw on the Franklin Public School web page that submission of election papers are open now until January 7th at 5pm. I am assuming this is because one of the incumbents did not turn in their intention of Non-candidacy paperwork and State Election laws require a 72 extension.

School Board Election: Deadline Extended to January 7th       

NOTICE OF DEADLINE EXTENSION

JANUARY 3, 2013

The deadline for filing ballot access documents for the office of School Board Member has been extended 72 hours to 5:00PM on Monday, January 7th.

Can you tell me (as of last night):

  1. Who the incumbent was that did not turn in their Non-Candidacy paperwork.
  2. Who did file paperwork for the Board of Education spring election.

 Thank You,

 Bryan P. Maersch

Franklin, WI 53132

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UPDATED: School Board Member Jeff Traylor Doesn’t Want You to Contact Him!

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In keeping with his history and lack of communications with the real constituents who put him office, School Board member Jeff Traylor has removed all contact information for himself on Franklin Public School’s website.

All Board members have included in their bio, their phone number and school system provided email address. Traylor has had both removed.  It looks like he doesn’t want to hear from the people who put him in office in the first place.

Traylor as most of you remember, was one of the board members that bullied the current Board President, Janet Evans.  Many times criticizing her for listening and voting according to the way constituents were looking to be represented.

Now it looks like, Jeff Traylor who has little or no power on the current board is taking his ball home and plans to isolate himself from the community.  Go figure!

I believe if you thought that 6 people running for the two spots on the board this past February was a record, you may see twice that amount running to replace Deb Larson, Jeff Traylor and Melissa Klein.

Don't Call Jeff Traylor, he'll call you!

UPDATE: Jeffry has now put this information back. Contact him to let him know you appreciate that. I am sure he would love to hear from you.

His phone number is: (414)461-7092 but you can also e-mail him as often as you like at Jeff.Traylor@franklin.k12.wi.us 

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Former School Board Vice-President Calls Franklin Bloggers Cyber Bully’s – Especially Current Board President Janet Evans!

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In a classic case of the POT calling the kettle BLACK, former Franklin Board of Education Vice-President Jeff Traylor  publicly posted that all the Franklin Bloggers (including Board President Janet Evans) are Cyber Bully’s on an open FACEBOOK posting. This coming from the man who consistently belittled and bullied current Board President Janet Evans at board meetings and board evaluations when he was in charge.

All this pent up anger shows up on the evening after the Franklin Public Schools Board of Education voted to replace both Larson and Traylor. This should never have been a surprise when more conservative board members were elected the past two elections in a row.  In reality, what has gone forth is local bloggers have brought to light the follies of the former President Deb Larson and VP Jeff Traylor.

A regular reader here at WAG THE DOG brought the posting that comes directly from Jeff Traylor’s FACEBOOK page. Please see the last posting by Deb Larson (former Board President) as she refers to current Board Vice President Tim Nielson.  Note his reference to newly elected Board President Janet Evans as he says “I have been Cyber Bullied for 5 years while I have been on the school board buy (sic) 4  bloggers from Franklin now. and now the 1 that is worst is now school board president” 

My question for Mr. Traylor …. Is this what you want a blog on the Franklin Public School site for?

 

Today Jeff Traylor posts this about conservative talk radio show host Jay Weber on Talk Radio 1130 discussing how there is a movement of conservative board members being elected (and he specifies Franklin) and  that are showing up in more school districts. One correction Jay, Janet Evans, Board President is in her second term receiving the highest amount of votes from the Franklin electorate in the past decade. She has been bullied by the current and past, liberal, tax and spend board members for the past three years including Jeff Traylor.

 

Here is the Podcast of todays show

You can listen to  Jay Weber at 6:45am tomorrow morning making an apology to Jeff Traylor at least that is what board member Traylor says.

So I ask you is Cyber Bullying the act of writing about your disgust with politically ELECTED School Board members that do not respect the wishes of those that elected them.  Would it be better it we kept it all hush hush up so members like Traylor, Larson and Klein could actually bully their fellow board members at meetings.

 

 

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Join the Celebration

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Now with an overwhelming vote in Franklin that has put financially responsible Franklin Public School’s  Board of Education members in our corner, we have reason to celebrate. In a two phase move, first to remove, unrestrained spenders like Judith Bialk and David Works in the primary. We as taxpayers went further to reject Union supported candidates Don Petre and John Thompson, who planned a course of unchecked facility spending. Both stated they equated high cost facilities spending with educational outcome.  

On April 25th at the regular meeting of the Board of Education, both Janet Evans and Aimee Schlueter, the peoples candidates, will be sworn in as board members and a reorganization of the board should occur.  

Next comes the next tough part, that is, the election of Board officers. As many of you know, Deb Larson has pretended to lead the board as President and Jeff (what the heck is financial responsibility?) Traylor has been her second in command as VP of the board.  

With a shift in paradigm (you know the one where Superintendent Steve Patz makes the rules and the board just nods their heads) to one where Dr. Steve Patz needs to justify his requests before the Board of Education who then discuss, approve or deny his requests.  

I believe there will be fewer occurrences of  hidden discussions under the pretense of closed door rules where board members are not allowed to discuss the outcome of their deliberation of issues.  

The direction of the board may also be to slow down the move toward a building referendum and actually get  real community discussion that is not one sided as the so called World Café meetings produced. Listening sessions or surveys have been more fruitful in getting community input but it is not the “directed  input” that Superintendent Patz and Company wanted. Input where they could control the direction, along with their Architects for the necessary outcome of massive building of facilities.  

I recall the community inputs sessions that were held for K4. Even though the majority of the input was not to go ahead with K4, Steve Patz tried to go forward with it until state funding of K4 came to a halt due to the economy. 

Our board, administration and parents must come to the realization that 75% of our population do not have children in the Franklin Public Schools. Many of which are just making ends meet, whether they are elderly on fixed incomes, or have faced cuts in their jobs and pay.  

I have read on the FranklinNOW the few that are making the comment that if you don’t like the fact that it could cost you $200 to $800 more per year in taxes then you should just get out of Franklin. Others say that people who come here will be influenced by our schools. I say, imagine that we have an influx of people moving to Franklin that have children that will go to our schools. When we do build new facilities, you may see those building costs increase into the thousands rather than the hundreds of dollars. People who move to Franklin with children should be checking, how are our students performing, not how incredible do the schools look.

Statistics show that performance, of the education of our children is not tied to facilities; it is tied to our educators, how they inspire and teach our children. We do have a high percentage of graduates going on to higher education and being successful. Just check out the FranklinNOW sometime and look at all the kids from Franklin on the Deans list of various universities. 

Please consider attending the Board of Education meeting on April 25 at the Franklin Public Schools Community Center, 8255 Forest Hill Avenue at 6pm and watch the change start in the City of Franklin Public Schools.

NEXT PHASE: Replace the following Board Members….

 

Deb Larson - Replace April 2013

Jeff Traylor - Replace April 2013

Melissa Klein - Replace April 2013

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Franklin Wins with Evans and Schlueter

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OK – Due to the massive variations involving the fact that there are 23 different voting Wards in Franklin, the tally of the April 3rd election was a slow process. I got to City Hall around 9:10pm when the 1st Aldermanic district brought their ballots and voting reader tapes to the City Clerk to begin the input of information.  There is a lot of pre-work that is actually done at the place which you vote.

NOTE: Do not write in names for Write In candidates unless you really have the votes to back it up. It just clogs the process as the poll workers have to manually record those and it does not make a political statement as no one but the poll workers see it.

Waiting with me for the results, were School Board candidates Janet Evans and Aimee Schlueter, along with liberal blogger, Greg Kowalski (who was Steve Taylor’s eyes and ears at city hall while Taylor drank with his friends at Mulligans) and our very own Verify the Recall spokesman, GrandSons of Liberty leader, Larry Gamble, who by the way, is also a poll worker. Some interesting conversations did ensue at the encampment waiting outside the City Clerk’s office. Many of which, I have promised not to write about :)

The first set of numbers were tallied and input into a spreadsheet by around, 10:00pm which encompassed the first two districts, showing Aimee and Janet commanding a firm lead.

Since I had to get up early and work today, I left City Hall about 11pm with the results of the 1st, 4th and 5th district counts entered in to the spread sheet tally which showing Janet Evans in first place along with Aimee Schlueter in a solid second place. Considering that the major networks projected Mitt Romney as the winner of the Wisconsin primary at 9:00pm, I felt that with 50% of the vote in, I could go to sleep with 50% of the vote showing the above results was a pretty safe bet.

When I got up this morning the results for the 2nd, 3rd and 6th districts repeated last nights results.  I talked to Janet Evans this morning and she did not get home until about 2am this morning. She still went to work by the way!

Congratulations to not only to Janet and Aimee but to all the residents of the Franklin Public School district. We WON! Especially a big THANK YOU to those residents that took it upon their individual selves to spread the word to their friends and neighbors that Don Petre and John Paul Thompson are NOT the kind of people we want to represent us on the Franklin Public School, Board of Education.

I look forward to the same grass root effort in eliminating Deb Larson, Jeff Traylor and Melissa Klein in next April’s spring election.

Unofficial Results:

Franklin School Board (2 seats)

100.0% reporting

Name                                       Votes            Vote %
  
Janet M. Evans (inc)      3,102           34.0 %
Aimee Schlueter               2,700           29.6 %
Don Petre                             1,948           21.3 %
John Paul Thompson  1,377           15.1 %

 

Janet Evans and Aimee Schlueter

 

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Threat Closes Franklin High on Friday March 30th

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It’s not an early April Fools joke when Franklin High Principal Mike Cady sends out an alert that school officials are closing down the High School for the day.

The following message was sent to all FHS parents via E-mail and voice alerts around 5:30 am this morning:

From: AlertNow Message from Franklin High School [mailto:noreply@alertnow.com]
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 5:30 AM
To: Undisclosed Recipient
Subject: FHS Closed on Friday 

Good morning,

Franklin High School will be closed on Friday as we investigate a threatening message left in a bathroom stall at school.  The message was discovered late Thursday night and we are working in coordination with the police department to ensure the security and safety of the building.  Additional communication will be sent out later in the day on Friday to update our families on the status of this situation.  As always, the safety of our students and staff is our first priority.

Principal Mike Cady

As a reminder to whoever left the message read this.
UPDATE:

From: AlertNow Message from Franklin High School [mailto:noreply@alertnow.com]
Sent: Friday, March 30, 2012 2:25 PM
To: Undisclosed Recipient
Subject: Update on school closing

Good afternoon FHS Parents and Students:

As previously reported, late last evening our custodial staff found a bomb threat written on a stall in a boys bathroom.  We made the decision to close school and work with the police to sweep the building to ensure safety.  The entire building has been thoroughly searched and swept by the Milwaukee County Sheriff K9 Unit and nothing of concern was found.  All school activities may continue as normal and students may access the school as of 3:00 p.m. today.  On Monday, there will be heightened security and all students should be prepared to have their bags searched upon entering the building so an earlier than normal arrival is advisable.  Doors will open at 6:45 a.m. at the Main and Fish Pond entrances only.  The investigation into this threat continues and anyone with relevant information is asked to contact the FHS administration or the Franklin Police Department.

We thank that FHS staff as well as the Franklin Police and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department for the excellent work today.

Sincerely,

Mike Cady

Principal

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Last Chance before You VOTE on April 3rd

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Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty – Candidate Forum

Franklin, WI – On Tuesday, March 27th at the Root River Bowling Center in Franklin; the Wisconsin GrandSons of Liberty is hosting another Candidate Forum this time for both the Franklin School Board election and the 9th District County Supervisor.

This is a moderated event and the last chance residents will get to hear the candidate’s views and positions before the election.

Root River Center is located near the corner of 76th Street and Rawson Avenue in Franklin at 7220 W. Rawson Avenue.

Franklin School Board Forum begins at 6:30pm and will last for 1 hour.

Candidates:

  • Janet Evans (Incumbent) – Confirmed
  • Donald Petre – Confirmed
  • Aimee Schlueter – Confirmed
  • John Paul Thompson – Confirmed

 

County Supervisor Forum begins at 7:30pm and will last for 1 hour.

Candidates:

  • Steve Taylor – Invited
  • Ken Gehl – Confirmed

 

 

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The “We Are Better” Politics of Don Petre

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I received this email from a concerned parent who received this email from Don Petre, the WEAC Union officer who teaches in Oak Creek.  This letter from what I was told went out to all Franklin Public School teachers. Please read this letter and consider writing one of your own to FranklinNOW before March 16th. Let Don Petre know we don’t need him or want him on the Franklin Board of Education. We already have board members who are mindless sheep and do not need him to add to the flock.

From: Don Petre <djpetre@wi.rr.com>

Hi again!

I wanted to ask yet another favor…

The Franklin NOW section is currently accepting “Election Letters” – these are public forum letters from readers pertaining to the election. They generally come from readers, not candidates, supporting some issue or candidate tied to an upcoming election.

These letters are limited to 300 words.  They must include your first and last name, community where you live, address and phone number.  (The address and phone number will NOT be printed in the paper.)

The deadline to submit a letter is Friday the 16th.

These election letters can be emailed to jriccioli@cninow.com

Would you be willing to submit a letter in support of my candidacy for the Franklin School Board?

I would appreciate any words of support that you would be willing to write!  Thanks!

Here are some key differences between myself and Janet Evans and Aimee Schlueter…

Don – BS in Education from UW-Madison, MS in Educational Administration and Supervision from UW-Milwaukee, and 23 years of experience working in the education field, along with ten years of teaching a graduate level college course.

Janet – HS diploma only

Aimee – Degree in Psychology but NO experience in the field.

Neither of them would ever get any consideration for a Board position at any multi-million dollar company

I have two children currently in the school district.  Janet Evans’ children are adults.

I want to improve our school facilities while maintaining reasonable property taxes.  No one wants to raise our taxes.  I have endured a 9% pay cut this year and cannot afford any increase in my own taxes.  I am hoping to secure  financial donations from Franklin businesses for things like naming rights for auditoriums, gymnasiums, and technology labs.  I have many personal connections to local businesses to try and get this done.  We also have other financial options available to our district, such as TIF’s coming off of the books and reserve funds in the school district.   I am for the many taxpayers in Franklin that want to maintain our reasonable taxes while still making improvements to our facilities.  Janet Evans is interested in keeping away progress out of our schools.

They are trying to use my union membership against me.  I believe it enhances my credentials and resume.  I will be able to use this experience in labor and in management to bring both sides together and see issues from both perspectives.  In order to see progress in our district, we need the School Board members to be on the same page.  The staff in Franklin will be more willing to listen and accept suggestions from someone like me – that can relate to their experiences.    In order to make progress, we need to be on the same page.  We need to get away from the “us vs. them” mentality that Janet Evans promotes.  This leads to gridlock in Washington and polarization in Madison.  We do not need that to find its way into our local school district.

I represent a diverse group of Franklin taxpayers on both sides of the aisle.  Janet and Aimee represent only a small fraction of people.  The School Board election is not a statement for or against the recall election of Scott Walker.  People in Franklin do not want that situation dragged into our local elections.  I want to bring our community together in the common goal of improving our school facilities so that the entire community – those with children and those without – can benefit from using these facilities, such as theater arts or an indoor walking track and community exercise facility.

I want to see an expansion of the STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) Programs, such as PLTW (Project Lead The Way) and promote additional business partnerships within our school system.  Janet and Aimee do not want programs to be expanded.

Thanks for anything that you may be willing to submit to the NOW section to promote my candidacy.

These election letters can be emailed to jriccioli@cninow.com

Thanks!

Don

 

 

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Primary 2012 Election Results

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It looks like David Works and incumbent Judith Bialk (last place) are out of the running for the highly contested Franklin Board of Education. The top vote getter was Janet Evans, also an incumbent. This race will be the most interesting to watch as both Janet Evans and Aimee Schlueter have come out on the side of the Franklin taxpayers and parents. While Don Petre and John Thompson are both endorsed by the teachers unions and from what little they have said are in favor of unlimited spending.

If Evans and Schlueter win the April election, this could very well change the face of the current Board of Education by kicking current President Deb Larson and VP Jeff Taylor out of their respective roles on the board.

One could ask themselves, “Is this why there are rumors that Superintendent Steve Patz is looking for a new job?”

PS – It was nice spending time with both candidates Evans and Schlueter (and Aimee’s husband) while waiting for results. Thanks again to the hospitality of Sandy Wesolowski and her staff also!

CONGRATULATIONS JANET AND AIMEE!

Early Primary

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