MORGAN CITY, La. — Jenna Gros jangles as she walks the halls of Wyandotte Elementary School in St Mary’s Parish, Louisiana. The dozens of keys she carries while she sweeps, sprays, shelves and sorts make a loud sound, and when children hear her coming, they call out, “Miss Jenna!” 

Gros is head custodian at Wyandotte, in this small town in southern Louisiana. She’s also a teacher-in-training.  

In August 2020, she signed up for a new program designed to provide people working in school settings the chance to turn their job into an undergraduate degree in education, at a low cost. There’s untapped potential among people who work in schools right now, as classroom aides, lunchroom workers, afterschool staff and more, the thinking goes, and helping them become teachers could ease the shortage that’s dire in some districts around the country, particularly in rural areas like this one. 

In two and a half years, the teacher training program, run by nonprofit Reach University, has grown from 50 applicants to about 1,000, with most coming from rural areas of Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama and California. The “apprenticeship degree” model costs students $75 dollars a month. The rest of the funding comes from Pell Grants and philanthropic donations. The classes, which are online, are taught by award-winning teachers, and districts must agree to have students work in the classroom for 15 hours a week as part of their training.

“We have overlooked a talent pool to our detriment,” said Joe Ross, president of Reach University. “These people have heart and they have the grit and they have the intelligence. There’s a piece of paper standing in the way.” 

Efforts to recruit teacher candidates from the local community date back to the 1990s, but programs have “exploded” in number over the past five years, said Danielle Edwards, assistant professor  of educational leadership, policy and workforce development at Old Dominion University in Virginia. Some of these “grow your own” programs, like Reach’s, recruit school employees who don’t have college degrees or degrees in education, while others focus on retired professionals, military veterans, college students, and even K12 students, with some starting as young as middle school.

“‘Grow your own’ has really caught on fire,” said Edwards, in part because of research showing that about 85 percent of teachers teach within 40 miles of where they grew up. But while these programs are increasingly popular, she says it isn’t clear what the teacher outcomes are in terms of effectiveness or retention. 

Related: Teacher shortages are real, but not for the reasons you’ve heard

Nationwide, there are at least 36,500 teacher vacancies, along with approximately 163,000 positions held by underqualified teachers, according to estimates by Tuan Nguyen, anassociate professor of education at Kansas State University. At Wyandotte, Principal Celeste Pipes has three uncertified teachers out of 26. 

“We are pulling people literally off the streets to fill spots in a classroom,” she said. Surrounding parishes in this part of Louisiana, 85 miles west of New Orleans, pay more than the starting salary of $46,000 she can offer; some even cover the full cost of health insurance. 

Data suggests not having qualified teachers can worsen student achievement and increase costs for districts. An unstable workforce also affects the school culture, said Pipes: “Once we have people here that are years and years and years in, we know how things are run.”

As Gros walks the hallways, she stops to swat a fly for a scared child, ties a first grader’s shoelaces and asks a third about their math homework. Her colleagues had long noticed her calm, encouraging manner, and so, when a teacher’s aide at Wyandotte heard about Reach, she urged Gros to sign up with her. 

Gros grew up in this town — her father worked as a mechanic in the oil rigs — and always wanted to be a teacher. But with three children and a salary of $22,000 a year, she couldn’t afford to do so. The low cost and logistics of Reach’s program suddenly made it possible: Her district agreed to her spending 15 hours of her work week in the classroom, mentoring or tutoring students. She takes her online classes at night or on weekends.

Current employees are also in the retirement system, meaning the years they’ve already worked count toward their pension. For Gros, who has worked for 18 years in her school system, that was an important consideration, she said. 

Pipes said people like Gros understand the vibe of this rural community — the importance of family, the focus on church, the love of hunting. And people with community roots are also less likely to leave, said Chandler Smith, the superintendent in West Baton Rouge Parish School System, a few hours’ drive away. 

His district is the second-highest paying in the state but still struggles to attract and retain teachers: It saw a 15 percent teacher turnover rate last year. Now, it has 29 teacher candidates through Reach. 

Related: Uncertified teachers filling holes across the South 

In West Baton Rouge Parish, Jackie Noble is walking back into the Brusly Elementary school building at 6:45 p.m. She’d finished her workday as a special education teacher’s aide around 3:30 p.m., then babysat her granddaughter for a few hours, spent time with her husband, and picked up a McDonald’s order of chicken nuggets, a large coffee and a Coke to get her through her evening classes. Some Reach classes go until 11 p.m. 

Noble was a bus driver in this area for five years, but she longed to be a teacher. When she mustered the courage to research options for joining the profession, she learned it would cost somewhere between $5,000 to $15,000 a year over at least four years. “I wasn’t even financially able to pay for my transcript because it was going to cost me almost $100,” she said. 

When Noble heard about Reach and the monthly tuition of $75 a month, she said, “My mouth hit the floor.”

Ross, of Reach University, said he often hears some variation of: “I had to choose between a job and a degree.” 

“What if we eliminate the question?” he said. “Let’s turn jobs into degrees.”

Brusly Elementary is quiet as Noble settles down in a classroom. She moves her food strategically off camera and ensures she has multiple devices logged in: her phone, laptop and desktop. Sometimes the internet here is spotty, and she doesn’t want to take any chances. 

It’s the night of the final class of her course, “Children with Special Needs: History and Practice.” Her 24 classmates smile and wave as they log on from different states. They’ve been taking turns presenting on disabilities such as dyslexia, brain injuries and deafness; Noble gave hers, on assistive technologies for children with physical disabilities, last week. 

Reach began in 2006 as a certification program for entry-level teachers who had a degree but still needed a credential. It then expanded to offer credentials to teachers who wanted to move into administration as well as graduate degrees in teaching and leadership. In 2020, Reach University started the program focused on school employees without a degree.

Kim Eckert, a former Louisiana teacher of the year and Reach’s dean, says she was drawn to the program because, as a high school special education teacher, she saw how little opportunity there was for classroom aides in her school to boost their skills. She started monthly workshops specifically for them.  

In growing the Reach program, Eckert drew from her teacher-of-the-year class, hiring people who understood the realities of classroom management and could model what it’s like to be a great teacher. She shied away from those who haven’t proven themselves in the classroom, even if they have degrees from top universities. “Everybody thinks they can be a teacher because they’ve had a teacher,” she said, but that’s not true. 

The 15 hours a week of “in-class training,” which can include observing a teacher, tutoring students or helping write lessons, is designed to allow students to test out what they’re learning almost immediately, without having to wait months or years to put their studies into practice. Michelle Cottrell Williams, a Reach administrator and Virginia’s 2018 teacher of the year, recalls discussing an exercise in class about Disney’s portrayal of historical events versus the reality. One of her students, a classroom aide, shared it with the fifth graders she was working with the next day. 

Noble says she’ll carry lessons about managing students from the bus to her classroom. She was responsible for up to 70 students while driving 45 miles an hour — so 20 in a classroom seems doable, she said. 

She can’t wait to have her own classroom where she is responsible for everything. “Being with the students approximately eight hours a day, you make a very, very larger impression on their lives,” she said. 

Related: In one giant classroom, four teachers manage 135 kids — and love it 

In May, Reach graduated its first class of teachers, a group of 13 students from Louisiana who had prior credits. The organization’s first full cohort will walk across the stage in spring 2024. 

There are promising signs. Nationwide, about half of teacher candidates pass their state’s teaching licensure exam; more than 60 percent of the 13 Reach graduates did. All of them had a job waiting for them, not only in their local community, but in the building where they’d been working. 

But Roddy Theobald, deputy director of the National Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research and researcher at the American Institutes for Research, says far more research is needed on “grow your own” programs. “There’s very, very little empirical evidence about the effectiveness of these pathways,” he said. 

One of the challenges is that the programs rarely target the specific needs of schools, he said. Some states have staffing shortages only in specific areas, like special education, STEM or elementary ed. “Sometimes they result in even more teachers with the right credentials to teach courses that the state doesn’t actually need,” he said. 

Edwards, one of the first researchers to study “grow your own” programs, is investigating whether teachers who complete them are effective in the classroom and stay employed in the field long term, as well as how diverse these educators are and whether they actually end up in hard-to-staff schools. 

“States are investing millions of dollars into this strategy, and we don’t know anything about its effectiveness,” she said. “We could be putting all this money into something that may or may not work.” 

Ross, of Reach University, says his group plans to research whether its new teachers are effective and stay in their jobs. In terms of meeting schools’ specific labor needs, Reach has agreements with other organizations such as TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project) and the University of West Alabama to help people take higher-level courses in hard-to-fill specialties such as high school math. But while Reach staff look at information on teacher vacancies before partnering with a school district, they don’t focus on matching the district’s exact staffing needs said Ross: “Our hope is the numbers work themselves out.”

In Louisiana, Ross said he believes the organization could put a serious dent in the teacher vacancy numbers statewide. Some 84 percent of all parishes have signed on for Reach trainees, he said, and 650 teachers-in-training are enrolled. That amounts to more than a quarter of the teacher vacancy numbers statewide, 2,500.

“We’re getting pretty close to being a material contribution to the solution in that state,” he said. 

His group is also looking to partner with states, including Louisiana, to use Department of Labor money for teacher apprenticeships. At least 16 states have such programs. Under a Labor Department rule last year, teacher apprenticeships can now access millions in federal job-training funds. Reach is in talks to use some of that money, which Ross says would allow it to make the programs free to students and rely less on philanthropy.  

A straight-A student since her first semester, head custodian Jenna Gros expects to graduate without any debt in May 2024. She expects to teach at this same elementary school. At that point, her salary will almost double.

She said she loves how a teacher can shape a child’s future for the better. “That’s what a teacher is — a nurturer trying to provide them with the resources that they are going to need for later on in life. 

I think I can be that person,” she said. She pauses. “I know I can.” 

This story about grow your own programs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The post To fight teacher shortages, schools turn to custodians, bus drivers and aides  appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Nate Shoutis produced a rap last August ahead of freshman library orientation. 

The Lander Valley High School librarian wrote verses showcasing the technology available to students. He sang about the inclusive spirit of the library he’d worked in for nearly a decade.

The song ended with a medley of genres and books. 

Performing live during the first weeks of language arts classes, Shoutis and his assistant broadcast a message that all students were welcome in the Lander Valley High School Library.

Shoutis wanted students to find the books that interested them the most, whether that be a C.J. Box crime novel or riveting war tale, a colorful graphic novel or a book with LGBTQ+ characters.

Whatever a student’s interests, the library had one main rule, rapped by Shoutis: 

“No put downs.”

Shoutis stressed the rule in response to what he saw as growing animosity toward the school’s LGBTQ+ community. He detailed this climate in a May letter sent to the teaching community of Fremont County School District No. 1, which operates Lander schools. 

The letter argued that school board policy failed to address a rising climate of hate towards LGBTQ+ students and instead tacitly fomented a climate of harassment and discrimination against these students, as well as the censorship of librarians and educators. 

Those concerns have been raised in school districts across the nation. School libraries have become home to a polarizing debate over the books that should be available to students. Spaces once known as quiet places to study have become clouded in suspicion and rancor.

That climate cost Lander an educator that, according to his students, was deeply caring and universally accepting. At the end of the school year, Shoutis walked away from the library and what he’d once called his “dream job.”

Making of a librarian 

Libraries run in the Shoutis family. His mother Cady Shoutis served as a librarian at both South Elementary and Gannett Peak. 

He shares her curious eyes. His fit frame is evidence of his love for canyoneering, packrafting, and generally adventuring outdoors. Like many Landerites, he worked as a National Outdoor Leadership School field instructor.

But by his late 20s, he had reached a juncture, deciding whether to take his outdoor educator skills into a more conventional school setting or go back to school himself and study film. 

Both of these callings were kindled in the Lander Valley High School library, where Paula Hunker served as his librarian and videography teacher. She and his mother demonstrated how meaningful a role in the library could be, he said. 

To sort out his decision, he volunteered in Portland, Oregon, shadowing librarians and helping with collection upkeep. 

His mother wasn’t surprised when he decided to join the district as Lander Valley High School’s library media specialist in 2014. 

“I just came to understand the position as one that was really well suited for my skill set, both with technology and media, as well as literacy and reading,” he said. “And just the love of reading.” 

Heart of the job

Shoutis ran the library space and also taught technology classes, where his students learned software and production skills for film, music and audio and 3D printing.

But he viewed the essence of his job more simply: inspiring a love of reading in his students. 

That required tuning into student needs and interests by building relationships. 

“I’m always asking students, ‘Hey, what are you reading? What’s on your radar? What are you looking for?’” Shoutis said. 

A master’s in education, a certification in language arts and library media and the diverse student body informed his book ordering process.The most important thing, he said, is to foster a collection that facilitates free choice reading, the principle of letting students select their own materials. If someone cared enough to recommend a book, Shoutis said, he’d almost always try to order it, as long as it passed his professional research and review process. 

This professional process did not involve his personal values, he said. When cycling in new books, he would remove volumes that were falling apart, were out of date or hadn’t been checked out in years. 

“But it is never about, ‘oh, our value systems have changed, and we’re updating our value system or our moral systems at all.’ It has nothing to do with that,” he said. “What it has to do with is trying to make sure we have a balance of everything in the library.”

Book controversy 

American history is littered with examples of book bans. Volumes considered classics — “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Of Mice and Men” — have been repeatedly challenged nationally by critics who contend they aren’t suitable for young people.

But the recent wave of book challenges stands out. In 2022, the American Library Association reported a record number of demands to censor library books and materials. The increase came as right-wing groups such as Moms For Liberty spurred regional efforts to curb “woke indoctrination” within schools and public libraries.

The culture wars have raged for decades in the U.S. But in the recent past, a new battleground emerged: the school board. 

Shoutis’ professional work — which he says had not been questioned in his nearly a decade tenure — became the subject of scrutiny in December. Concerns over the books available in Lander school libraries, as well as the policy for challenging them, reached the board governing Fremont County School District No.1. 

Board member Scott Jensen said he raised the issue after being approached by community members who were concerned about the process of challenging reading materials. Under the system that existed at the time, the district superintendent settled book complaints, but that decision could be appealed to the school board.

National concerns about reading resources and the ability to challenge them raised local unease over the school district’s policy, according to Jensen. 

Jensen advocated for reconsidering the process “to address the tenor of the adversarial nature of the old policy and the complexity of it, to make it more simple,” he explained in an interview with WyoFile. 

“I wanted to implement something that was more transparent,” he said. “So that people could see that, in fact, what is happening in other parts of the country really isn’t happening here.”

On this point, Shoutis agrees. During his time as librarian, only one parent had approached him with a concern over a library book. 

“The whole issue is completely fabricated. Utterly, a non-issue,” he said. 

Shoutis believes the national issue escalated in Wyoming after interim Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder organized the Stop the Sexualization of Our Children press conference. The conference, held in October at Little America in Cheyenne, provided a map of Wyoming school districts that offered books of concern, as identified by conference organizers.

Shoutis’ believes that the anti-sexualization movement is aimed at eliminating LGBTQ+ voices and material — both in and out of libraries. 

“I think the whole maneuvering is to silence LGBTQ and Black perspectives in schools completely. So it’s not just about censoring books. It’s about censoring everything.” 

Board members Aileen Brew and Jensen offered two competing policy drafts. In his letter, Shoutis endorsed Brew’s policy, which would have left appeals in the hands of a committee of stakeholders rather than the board. 

However, the board adopted Jensen’s approach in a 4-3 vote at a June board meeting. 

The updated policy places the final consideration of materials in the hands of the school board, which is supposed to render a decision based on “community values.” 

Jensen says that community values are an incredibly difficult thing to define, but are ultimately up to the acting school board to determine via open debate and public discussion. The ultimate “check and balance on that is the democratically elected board,” he said. “So if the board gets out of tune with the community, and then whichever members are out of tune will get voted out, and there’ll be a new board.” 

Shoutis argues that the resulting community values will not be a measure of the entire district but rather reflective of the seven-member school board. “Make no mistake — he is very much describing classic book banning and censorship,” Shoutis wrote in his May letter. 

Rising violence and school board policy 

Shoutis did not pull any punches in his letter. 

A series of new school board policies over the last two years, he argued, have not only failed to address rising harassment and discrimination against LGBTQ+ students, but removed protections for them as well. He was in a position to know. Shoutis was advisor for the SPEAK club, the high school’s Genders and Sexualities Alliance organization. 

In the letter, he describes a dangerous disconnect over what is directly harming students and the school board’s recent policies. While officials fret over library books, real harm against LGBTQ+ students gets overlooked, he argued. 

The main problem, Shoutis contends in his letter, is the rising climate of harassment and discrimination against LGBTQ+ students and the inability to counter it due to an inadequate reporting system. 

Jensen, for his part, agrees that the reporting system is ineffective, describing it as opaque. It operates as a one-way reporting loop, where students and educators report episodes of bullying, but do not receive follow-up on if or how the situation has been resolved. 

It is the administration’s, rather than the board’s, job to manage that issue, Jensen says. He said the administration has been collecting data on the problem before they change the reporting system, Jensen said. 

But Shoutis argues that student needs are being neglected. 

In spring of 2022, he and the SPEAK club members spent a month’s worth of lunchtime meetings logging student experiences with bullying and what they see as a broken reporting policy to share with the counselors, administration and later the board. The policy remains the same. 

Instead, Shoutis argues recent policy changes — regulating the teaching of controversial issues and dissolving explicit non-discrimination protections for the LGBTQ+ community — have made it harder to report instances of harassment and discrimination.

Further, the teaching controversial issues policy adopted by the board in spring 2021 — compounded by the push to ease book-challenge policy — prompted teachers like him to censor themselves, which Shoutis said limited his ability to be an effective educator and librarian. 

But that’s a feature, not a bug, Jensen countered.

“That is, in fact, the purpose of that policy, is to have teachers to self censor themselves so that they do not use their platform to proselytize to kids,” Jensen said.

In April, Shoutis was reprimanded via the policy over a student-designed banned book display that featured queer-themed books. But by then, he’d already made the decision to leave. 

As an educator trying to mend what he saw as a disconnect between students who felt harmed and the higher ups, and as a librarian trying to uphold the American Library Association’s standard — “freedom to read” — he was depleted. 

He gave notice to resign in February. It was time to step down for his own health and to give the school time to find a strong replacement. 

His last day was May 26.

A few weeks later, at his home framed by the brick-red canyon rocks of the Wind River uplift, Shoutis had to look away when remembering his time at Lander Valley High. 

He was crying. 

“I guess the only thing I would say is that the heroes in the story are just the students themselves, these queer students because they are so resilient, ” he said.

A loss for students 

With Shoutis’ departure, former students feel they’ve not only lost a deeply welcoming librarian, but a generous tech wizard and fierce advocate. 

“I don’t want to think about whether the new librarian will do a good job,” said Finn Gebhart, a rising Lander Valley High junior. 

“I think it’s a loss that our school and our school district will never get back.” 

Gebhart was in Shoutis’ emerging technology class, where students had the chance to learn animation, music production and video editing software. 

“It feels like very rarely do teachers genuinely care about what is going on in their students’ lives, and to some extent, even the education that their students are receiving,” Gebhart said. 

SPEAK club member Felanie Kelson recalled when Shoutis worked to find a coach for the speech and debate club so that forum remained available for students. 

They also remembered when Shoutis chaperoned the annual SPEAK club field trip to the University of Wyoming’s Shepard Symposium on Social Justice. The students had the chance to thrift for outfits for a queer dance party hosted on the last day. 

The Lander Valley High motto is “every student every day.”

“[It is] definitely not met, but [Shoutis] made sure that every student he interacted with, like that the goal was every student every day,” Kelson said. 

Shari Haskins, who manages Riverton’s public library, said Shoutis is “kind and generous to his profession and to his students.”  

“He so embraced the profession and what he could do with it for the students. It was a break from mediocrity. [Mediocrity] has its place because it’s easy. But when you want to excel, you’ll get a lot of criticism, and he was excelling.”

To students like Gebhart and Kelson, it felt like the school board pushed out Shoutis. 

“I just think it’s important to remember him as who he was, and as what he did for our school system,” Kelson said. “But I also think it’s important to note that he would still be here, if it weren’t for our school system, if they hadn’t pushed him out and pushed him to his limit. He’s not the only one that they’re pushing.” 

Board chair Jared Kail said the district cannot comment on Shoutis’ resignation as it is a personnel issue. Brew also said she could not comment as a board member. But speaking as a parent, she said Shoutis had a major impact on her daughter, who met him as a freshman.

“She gained a much greater awareness of social justice issues and the importance of standing up for your beliefs and for the rights of yourself and others,” Brew wrote in an email to WyoFile. 

“Mr. Shoutis encouraged student creativity, intellectual curiosity and involvement, whether students were interested in gaming, or videography or photography, or books,” she added. “He was a strong supporter of LGBTQ+ students in our high school and worked to create a learning and social environment that supported all students.”

Shoutis, for his part, is taking a break from not only teaching, but Lander. During a recent phone conversation, he paused when asked what was next. His response was interrupted by the public address system at the airport in Anchorage, Alaska.

He was headed out for a long trip.

“Lander’s home,” Shoutis said. “I need a break from it, though.” 

“It’s been hard to take that the small town that I grew up in has shown such overt hatred toward a group of people,” he said. “But I haven’t given up on it, even though I’m really, really, really disappointed in a lot of people there right now.” 

The post How Lander lost a librarian appeared first on WyoFile.

NELSONVILLE, Ohio — Calls to protest library LGBTQ+ Pride displays and holdings instead prompted a 100-strong crowd supportive of the displays and library materials to show up to the July board meetings of the Athens County Public Libraries and Nelsonville-York City School District.

Around 80 people crammed into the Nelsonville Public Library, at 95 W. Washington St., on July 19, with a crowd of about 30 others assembled outside. Fourteen people spoke during the meeting’s public comment period — all in support of LGBTQ+ rights and current library practices. Many others held signs or Pride flags to signal their support for the same.

“LGBTQ+ individuals are our neighbors, our friends, our coworkers and service providers,” said local resident Susan Westenbarger at the meeting. “They deserve to occupy space in the libraries just like anyone else, and they deserve to have their presence acknowledged.”

Letters published in the Athens News between June 15 and July 18 called for protests at the libraries.

Some letters claimed pride displays pushed “the trans lifestyle on our kids and communities,” caused “traditional families” to feel uncomfortable and/or advanced the “radical agenda of the left.” One described a young adult graphic novel about the author’s journey with queer gender and sexuality as “gross and vulgar,” while another joined its call to ban such holdings. Yet another described library sessions of the popular role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons as “anti-religious meetings.” 

These letters prompted twice as many defending the libraries, library holdings and pride displays.

Nelsonville reflects the nation

Library Director Nick Tepe told the Independent that as the letters trickled in, he thought, “Well, it’s finally come to us.” 

Libraries across the country have faced similar complaints for years, with an uptick beginning in 2016. In many places, these complaints have resulted in less LGBTQ+ programming, partly due to self-censorship (for instance, librarians wanting to avoid controversy).

The library board has regularly discussed over the past two years how to respond in the event of similar controversy here, Tepe said. 

At the meeting, Tepe broadly defended LGBTQ+ library holdings and Pride displays as appropriate within library policy, citing broad community interest in LGBTQ+ books and materials and Pride Month celebrations.

“Displaying library materials on topics of great interest meets the collection development policy standards of providing library patrons with access to authoritative opinion on the topic of varying levels of difficulty, complexity and length,” Tepe said at the meeting.

Tepe also noted that the library system has received no formal complaints from any of the individuals who wrote letters to the Athens News. He told the Independent that he recently received two related complaints about library holdings. While one complaint is still being processed, neither has yet resulted in the removal of library materials, Tepe said.

ACPL Board Vice President Suzanne Ragg and member Steve Cox both expressed support for Tepe and current library policy as it relates to LGBTQ+ holdings and displays.

“I’m very proud of the development that our library has done in their policies concerning inclusiveness in our community — our whole community — and I appreciate everything our administration has done to stand up,” Cox said.

To convey the breadth of community interest in LGBTQ+ holdings and displays, Tepe referenced bipartisan federal recognition of Pride Month by U.S. Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden, as well as media coverage and widespread attendance of Pride Month events locally.

However, Tepe told the Independent that none of this is necessary for the libraries to recognize feature LGBTQ+ pride displays, whether in June or at any other time of year: “The fact that there is a community in Athens who is interested in that topic means that it will continue to be at the library.”

Many who spoke during the public comment period at the library board meeting emphasized the importance of varied library holdings to individual exploration and discovery, particularly as it relates to identity.

“It wasn’t until a public library opened in the town over from mine in eighth grade that I was able to start navigating big questions around how my identity and beliefs might differ from others,” said local resident Becca Lachman. “There are items in our libraries I don’t agree with either or want my child to read or view, but I welcome those conversations with her when she does, and I can’t imagine parenting without access to all that a public library offers.” 

Others said that pride displays and LGBTQ+ holdings have helped them feel welcome at the county’s public libraries.

“For those of us who are a part of the LGBT community, it’s important for us to feel included and to know that libraries are for everyone, especially those of us who have been excluded or pushed out of public spaces,” said Miranda Christy.

Tepe told the Independent that these comments reinforced the importance of the library’s displays and holdings.

“The comments that were made by members of the community last night talking about how they felt welcome in the library and safe in the library because of that visible recognition is meaningful to us, because we do want everybody to feel safe and welcomed in the library — so so that is definitely something that we are taking into account as we make decisions about displays,” Tepe said.

On to Buchtel

After the ACPL board meeting concluded, about 50 attendees traveled to the Nelsonville-York Board of Education meeting. The board chooses the board members for ACPL, which prompted letters to the Athens News calling for anti-LGBTQ+ protests at the July 19 school board meeting.

One attendee addressed the turnout during the public comment period, noting that those in attendance wished to support the library’s current administration. No other members of the public made comments.

School board president Micah Covert did not respond to the Independent’s request for comment.

Tepe said it will be important for the public to continue supporting the library’s board and administration. 

“We’re not expecting this to be done after this board meeting,” Tepe said. “The pattern in other places is that the complaints continue — and there’s always the possibility that people who are objecting to the presence of particular viewpoints in the library will continue to complain and come to board meetings and continue to challenge library materials. So, we will continue to need the support of everybody in our community as we make sure that we are providing information for the entire community.”

The next ACPL board meeting will be at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 16, again at the Nelsonville branch. The next Nelsonville-York Board of Education meeting will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 9, in the junior high school/high school cafeteria.

The post Calls for anti-LGBTQ+ protests backfire appeared first on Athens County Independent.

SALEM, Ore. — Jaeci Hall completed her dissertation in tears. She was writing about the importance of revitalizing and teaching Indigenous languages, specifically the Nuu-wee-ya’ language and her tribe’s dialects. “I spent months writing,” she said, “just crying while I wrote because of how it felt to not be recognized.”

Hall — who graduated in 2021 with a doctorate in linguistics from the University of Oregon — is the language coordinator for the Coquille Indian Tribe.

But Hall is not part of the federally recognized tribe of the Coquille. She’s part of the Confederated Tribes of Lower Rogue, which she described as the descendants of nine women who relocated and returned to the Rogue River after the Rogue River Wars of the 1850s in southern Oregon. Despite their rich history and Hall’s documentation of her heritage, Hall and her ancestors are not acknowledged by the United States government as a tribal nation.

Hall’s status meant that when she was earning her degrees, she didn’t qualify for financial assistance designed for Native students. She would not have been eligible for tuition waiver programs instituted in Oregon last year that reduce or eliminate costs for students who belong to federally recognized tribes.

For decades, a handful of individual states and schools have offered financial assistance to Native students. A new wave of offerings this past year – spurred in part by growing land rights movements and a larger focus on racial justice following the murder of George Floyd – shows the programs are becoming increasingly popular.

The programs are meant to help reduce the barrier of cost for Native students, who have historically faced significant challenges in attending and staying in college. Native students have the lowest college-going rate of any group in the United States, a third less than the national average, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. And since 2010, Native enrollment in higher-ed institutions also has declined by about 37 percent, the largest drop in any student demographic group. Studies suggest affordability is one of the leading causes of attrition.

But in nearly every iteration of these programs — old and new — only some Indigenous people benefit.

That’s because the U.S. government does not formally acknowledge the status of an estimated 400 tribes and countless Indigenous individuals, thus shutting them out of programs meant to reduce barriers to higher education. Tribes have to meet several criteria in their petitions for federal recognition, including proof they’ve had decades of a collective identity, generations of descendants and long-standing, autonomous political governance.

As a result, thousands of Native students aren’t getting the same opportunities as their peers in recognized tribes and are left with a disproportionate amount of debt. Affected students say the disparate treatment also leaves social and emotional wounds.

“I made it through it,” Hall said, adding with a laugh that she did most of her dissertation work remotely during Covid, often with her toddler playing around her. “And I would have made it through it better if I had had more support.”

Hall is now paying off about $190,000 in student loans, the cumulative cost of her undergraduate degree from Linfield College in Oregon, her master’s at the University of Arizona and her doctorate from the University of Oregon. A loan forgiveness program through her work will cut her obligation to roughly $50,000, but the total harms her chances of receiving a loan or improving her credit.

Hall’s children, who has Native status because of her father’s enrollment in a recognized tribe, will likely have opportunities Hall did not. If her daughter, for example, a Eugene middle schooler, maintains a 3.0 grade-point average, she will be able to attend the University of Oregon for free.

There are “so many people that are stuck in poverty and stuck in situations where they can’t get an education,” Hall said. “I started thinking … how hard their lives are, and how much of a difference could be made.”

Related: States were adding lessons about Native American history. Then came the anti-CRT movement

Individual schools and states across the country have instituted varying forms of these tuition programs over the years. The University of Maine, for example, has had a tuition waiver option since the 1930s. The program helped the school retain its Native students during the pandemic at higher rates than the national average, according to Marcus Wolf, a university spokesperson. Michigan and Montana have had waivers available for Native students for almost half a century.

Oregon joined this list, beginning with the 2022-23 school year, when then-Gov. Kate Brown announced the introduction of a statewide grant fund. The Oregon Tribal Student Grant covers tuition, housing and books at public institutions and some private universities for undergraduate and graduate students belonging to Oregon’s nine federally recognized tribes. The money is awarded only after students apply for federal or state financial aid.

In its first year, 416 students received the grant, according to Endi Hartigan, a spokesperson for the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission. Oregon lawmakers allocated $19 million for the first year — based on an estimate that 700 or more students would receive a grant — and this legislative session, they codified the program in state statute and allocated $24 million for the next two years.

Several state universities – including Western Oregon, Oregon State, Portland State and Southern Oregon – also began providing an additional form of financial aid. Last year, these schools extended in-state tuition prices to members of all 570-plus federally recognized tribes in the U.S., regardless of what state they live in. The same is true for the University of California system, the University of Arizona and other institutions across the country.

Western Oregon started its Native American Tuition program last fall. It’s been a slow start to get students interested, with public records requests revealing that fewer than 10 students applied for or participated in the program in its inaugural year. However, the impact it has on those students is substantial: The university estimates the program saves participating students nearly $20,000 per student per year.

Anna Hernandez-Hunter, who until June was the director of admissions for Western Oregon, said the numbers are low because the program is new and the university enrolls few students from out of state (only about 19 percent of undergraduates). She said the university has made the application process easier for next year, published more information online and made sure admission counselors are sharing the information with prospective students.

But eligibility for that program, like the vast majority of such tuition offerings, requires enrollment in a federally recognized tribe.

Western Oregon’s Office of the President, as well as communications and admissions officials with the University of Oregon,  declined to comment specifically on why unrecognized tribes are excluded from the programs. One university official said on background that, generally speaking, program staff at any university have to follow federal and state guidelines, as well as standards for who qualifies for the resources.

Institutions typically validate a student’s enrollment by requiring a federally issued tribal ID or a letter from a recognized tribal council confirming enrollment. Native advocates said some students don’t have this kind of documentation even when they are enrolled in a recognized tribe. Documentation depends on the information families can access to prove their lineage. Enrollment requirements differ from tribe to tribe, and after generations of forced removal and assimilation, such documentation can be limited. 

Limiting which Native students get financial assistance is especially significant, given the rising cost of post-secondary degrees. According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees at a public, four-year school was $10,940 for in-state students in 2022-23 or $28,240 for out-of-state students. And research by the Education Data Initiative shows Native students borrow more and pay more per month in student loan debt than their white peers.

Native students have the lowest college-going rate of any group in the United States, a third less than the national average, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Some colleges or states have agreements with specific unrecognized tribes. Oregon, for example, allows members of Washington’s Chinook Indian Nation, which is fighting to regain its federal recognition, to at least access in-state tuition because the Chinook have tribal boundaries in Oregon.

Jason Younker leads the University of Oregon’s Home Flight Scholars Program, which is one of the school’s many assistance programs available for Native students. Launched last October, Home Flight not only works to recruit more Native students to the university but also provides funding, mentors, culturally specific programs and support to help Native students adjust to life on campus.

Younker said students can prove their eligibility for the program by showing a Certificate Degree of Indian Blood card (CDIB) instead of enrollment records. Blood quantum, or the measurement of someone’s “Indian blood,” has a long, controversial history in the U.S. And certificates are only available to people related to members of recognized tribes. But Younker said this allows someone to show they are Native without enrollment records since some tribes’ enrollment requirements exclude those who still have high percentages of Native blood.

Younker, who is part of the Coquille tribe, said the university allows students to show blood quantum via a Certificate Degree of Indian Blood card (CDIB) — which is only available to people related to members of recognized tribes — instead of enrollment records since some tribes’ enrollment requirements exclude those who still have high percentages of Native blood.

Program leaders also allow students, even those from unrecognized tribes, to apply to Home Flight via letters from council members, in an attempt to extend this support to at least some of Oregon’s unrecognized students pursuing undergraduate degrees.

Younker said the question should no longer be: “Can I afford to go to college?” The question should be: “Where can I go to college?”

“Each and every one of us has had an ancestor that sacrificed and survived so that they could have the choices that they do today,” he said. “I always tell students: ‘It doesn’t matter where you go; it matters that you do go.’”

But he said tuition assistance isn’t enough to attract and retain Native American students. To succeed in this, colleges must also recruit on reservations, provide academic counseling, cultural support and a community of peers, and include Native leaders in major decisions at the university. “If you don’t have those kinds of things, you’re not a very attractive school — no matter how much tuition you waive,” he said.

Related: 3 Native American students try to find a home at college

For students and parents like Yvette Perrantes, the lack of support affects multiple generations.

Perrantes wanted to go to college as an adult so she could move into a higher income bracket. She’s a member and leader of the Duwamish Tribe, who lived on the land that is now South Seattle, Renton and Kent, and have been called Seattle’s first people. They’ve fought a decades-long battle for federal recognition that continues today.

Without tribal status and consequent financial aid, Perrantes owed $27,000 in student loans after finishing her associate degree in clean energy technologies at Washington’s Shoreline Community College in 2014. She deferred her loan payments until she no longer could. Threatened with having her wages garnished, she filed for bankruptcy. Her credit score took a hit. She had to keep making payments, but now had no chance of leasing a car, getting a credit card or exercising other opportunities.

Her son was looking into college at the same time Perrantes faced these financial hardships. He hoped to receive an athletic scholarship, but when he tore his ACL, the young student-athlete stopped pursuing higher education altogether. In his eyes, Perrantes said, all it would lead to was debt.

The effects of exclusion from federal recognition and benefits are compounded, Perrantes said, for those who come from families, like hers, with intergenerational trauma and parents who are “doing a lot of healing themselves.”

Not “being included in this process with the federal government and not having equal access to student loans and money for education, and more interest rates, you know, everything that comes along with federal recognition,” she said, “it’s pretty crushing to the spirit.”

Perrantes now works as a program manager for Mother Nation, a Seattle-based nonprofit that focuses on cultural services, advocacy, mentorship and homeless prevention for Native women. She worries that students who go out of state for school may be disproportionately denied aspects of their identity. If someone isn’t a recognized tribal member, she said, they aren’t allowed to participate in certain cultural practices such as burning, smudging, harvesting certain trees or having an eagle feather. Those barriers are even more pronounced when the person is from a different state. 

“[H]ow are we going to be educated enough to cite policy, to fight for recognition? We need more Natives who are educated and who are willing to do the work for the people.”

Yvette Perrantes, a member of the Duwamish tribe and a leader on its council

“Being Native and being grounded in your ways, traditionally, and being out of state, outside your family, outside of your tradition, outside of your culture, and then you’re not being able to practice your cultural ways. You know, I think it’s impactful on your emotional, spiritual and mental health,” she said. “We need those to sustain ourselves as students.”

Perrantes still encourages Indigenous students to pursue education at all costs. That way, she said, they can be the ones making laws and the ones teaching their history in the classroom. “The pen is mightier than the sword,” she said. “I know that sounds so cliche, but how are we going to be educated enough to cite policy, to fight for recognition? We need more Natives who are educated and who are willing to do the work for the people.”

As states and institutions expand tuition waiver programs, Hall, the doctoral graduate from the Confederated Tribes of Lower Rogue, would like to see different ways used to verify a claim of being Native and for resources to extend to unrecognized students. Her advice for Native students is to be as stubborn as they can, to believe in themselves and to remember that any kind or any level of education will improve their lives and that of their community.

“We all have some history. We’re survivors. Regardless,” Hall said. Education “is an answer to the prayers of our ancestors, no matter if we’re recognized or not.”

This story about Native American tuition waiver programs was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

The post College tuition breaks for Native students spread, but some tribes are left out appeared first on The Hechinger Report.

Civic Leadership & Engagement Corps (CLEC) has awarded Saint Martin’s University a $125,000 career and leadership development grant. CLEC is an AmeriCorps initiative through the

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This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and funded by the Walton Family Foundation. Wisconsin Watch is a member of the network. Sign up for our newsletter to get our news straight to your inbox.

After a developer began eyeing rural northwest Wisconsin for a large swine farm, five small towns enacted ordinances aimed at curbing environmental and health impacts.

Then, the state’s biggest business and agricultural interest groups fought back. They engaged disaffected residents. Some locals sued. Others ran for political office. New leaders in one Polk County town rescinded regulations on concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs.

Now, officials in the remaining towns with livestock regulations wonder whether they, too, are in legal crosshairs. 

The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and Wisconsin Dairy Alliance have filed a far-reaching public records request for documents from an advisory group that shaped the municipalities’ CAFO rules.

In 2019, a developer proposed an operation, known as Cumberland LLC, that would have housed up to 26,350 pigs — the region’s first swine CAFO and what would be the largest in Wisconsin. Residents later formed the advisory group, believing that state livestock laws insufficiently protect health and quality of life.

In October, two farm families, represented by WMC Litigation Center, sued one municipality in the advisory group: Laketown, population 1,024. The town’s livestock, crop and specialty farms make up almost two-thirds of the landscape.

The plaintiffs, later joined by the Farm Bureau, argued that Laketown’s ordinance diminished property values and prospects for future expansion, a government overreach that could “essentially outlaw mid-to-large sized livestock farms.”

Scott Rosenow, the Litigation Center’s executive director, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.

The records request follows the dismissal of that lawsuit, but some residents wonder if the lobbying organizations are “fishing” for another case, the latest effort to prevent local governments from regulating farming in America’s Dairyland.

Pig farm proposal roils northwest Wisconsin 

Cumberland’s proposal sparked heated public meetings, dozens of letters to newspapers and the formation of a nonprofit opposition organization.

The CAFO would be constructed in Trade Lake, north of Laketown in neighboring Burnett County. Sows would be bred and piglets trucked elsewhere after weaning, where they would grow until slaughter.

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources rejected Cumberland’s application in March. The developer recently pitched a scaled-down project that would house 19,800 swine.

CAFO opponents in Laketown include back-to-the-landers, who view such farms as inhumane to animals. Others fear the health impacts of the millions of gallons of manure facilities generate annually, to be spread on farm fields.

About 90% of all nitrate groundwater pollution in Wisconsin comes from fertilizer and manure application, according to the DNR. The naturally occurring nutrient helps crops grow, but scientists associate exposure in drinking water with birth defects, thyroid disease and increased risk of developing certain cancers.

Other concerns are rooted in economics. Some Laketown farmers say CAFOs threaten smaller operations; others fear shrinking property values.

“It’s nothing more than big corporations getting together with the government and putting the screws to the little people,” said Vietnam Army veteran and recently ousted Laketown supervisor, Bruce Paulsen, who, like many opponents, speculates that the pork will be exported to China.

Laketown’s ordinance explained 

The town ordinances regulate not where, but how CAFOs operate.

Laketown’s rules applied to new operations housing at least 700 “animal units,” the equivalent of 1,750 swine or 500 dairy cows, and required applicants to submit plans for preventing infectious diseases, air pollution and odor; managing waste and handling dead animals.

It also mandated traffic and property value impact studies, a surety for clean-ups and decommissioning and an annual $1-per-animal-unit permit fee — atop costs to review the application and enforce the terms of the permit.

The ordinance did not affect existing livestock facilities as long as the farms did not change owners, alter their animal species or expand beyond 1,000 animal units. But several residents believed the strict requirements amounted to a CAFO ban that would bar existing farms from growing.

Others protested government spending on the advisory group. Some said the smell of manure comes with living in a rural area.

Polk County Supervisor Brad Olson asked why farming gets blamed when excessive road salt and wastewater treatment plant overflows also taint water.

“I don’t think anybody denies that agriculture is part of the problem — or has the potential to be part of the problem in pollution,” said Olson, who farms crops and used to be a dairy farmer. “If we’re going to look at pollution, let’s look at the bigger picture.”

Clothing-optional campground owners Jen and Scott Matthiesen initially signed onto the lawsuit before attorneys requested they withdraw out of concern their business — “we’re not a nudist camp,” Jen said — would distract from the case. The couple worried that singling out farming could pave the way for special regulation of other businesses.

New Laketown Sup. Ron Peterson ran on the promise of overturning the ordinance. He believes it unlawfully superseded state laws. Those laws ban local authorities from regulating livestock more strictly than the state — unless they can prove a need to protect health or safety.

“The Wisconsin Legislature has been very clear in the statute that it’s their intent that they want uniformity in the regulation of animal agriculture,” said Peterson, a former attorney.

Gaps in DNR regulations 

But supporters of Laketown’s ordinance say it merely corked regulatory leaks.

The DNR acknowledges it lacks legal authority to manage how livestock farming affects odor, noise, traffic and other issues unrelated to water quality. The agency also has struggled to keep pace with the proliferation of CAFOs, defined as farms holding at least 1,000 animal units.

The vast majority of Wisconsin’s 337 operations form the backbone of the state’s dairy industry. Just a dozen house swine.

As the DNR sees more proposals for large farms in recent years, staff shortages and turnover have fueled a backlog in permitting, delays in CAFO inspections and inconsistencies in violations enforcement, according to legislative reports.

As of June, the DNR’s permitting backlog totaled 20%, slightly less than this spring when administrators said they would need an additional 2.25 full-time-equivalent staff to handle the growing workload.

Sidestepping ‘right-to-farm’ protections

Wisconsin’s “right-to-farm” and livestock facility siting laws protect farmers from nuisance claims and generally rebuff local control over CAFOs.

Regulating livestock operations, but not banning them or restricting their locations, could enable communities to sidestep the laws — with major implications for the state’s $104.8 billion agricultural industry.

The strategy, successfully deployed in 2016 in Bayfield County, appears to be spreading. Facing the prospective expansion of a dairy CAFO in Pierce County, about 60 miles south of Laketown, residents are urging county supervisors to enact a CAFO moratorium until they can develop an ordinance.

“The problem is, we’re a disease for them,” said Trade Lake resident Rick Painter, a retired attorney who opposes Cumberland’s construction. “We’re a cancer, and they can’t afford for the cancer to metastasize.”

When confronted with legal threats, Laketown was among the few Wisconsin local governments to stand its ground, perhaps due to the deep expertise of its full- and part-time residents.

Trade Lake property owner and trial lawyer Andy Marshall and his brother David agreed to represent the town at no cost. If the other towns requested assistance, Andy Marshall said he would offer his services. Without money for a good legal defense, he said, small towns can get “steamrolled” by wealthy interest groups.

“It shouldn’t be the community that suffers because these companies can’t safely operate,” Marshall said.

Farmers want expansion options 

Farmer Sara Byl views the anti-CAFO chorus with increasing skepticism. 

Her family owns Northernview Farm, growing about 600 acres of corn and alfalfa to feed their herd of Holsteins in Laketown. Before Sara and her parents sued over Laketown’s ordinance, she served on the town’s livestock facility licensing committee, which studied whether it needed CAFO regulations.

Byl felt the effort evolved into a push against all large-scale farming rather than one hog CAFO.

“It was all about the hog farm — hog farm this, hog farm that,” she said. “Then they left off the word ‘hog’ and they just kept saying ‘farm.’ ”

The Byl family, three generations of farmers, doesn’t operate a CAFO, but Sara says the farm might grow if her son, nieces or nephews pursue agriculture careers. 

Farmers expand for multiple reasons, said Michael Langemeier, a professor in the agricultural economics department at Purdue University.

Farm expansion and consolidation help lower production costs, increase efficiency and satisfy demands for safe, low-cost and uniform agricultural products. Larger farms also can financially support multiple owners and obtain favorable prices on supplies. 

But CAFO opponents argue the consumer gains are offset by the federal policies that support large livestock farms, including taxpayer funded subsidies, and other costs resulting from their health and environmental impacts.

Bracing for next lawsuit

Although newly elected Laketown officials rescinded the rules in April, the CAFO regulations of four other towns remain intact.

That same month, the Dairy Alliance submitted public records requests to all towns in the advisory group for communications from current or former town supervisors about the group’s work. The Farm Bureau also requested records from all advisory group members related to its work, as well as its expenses.

Asked for comment, Cindy Leitner, the Dairy Alliance’s president, ceased correspondence with Wisconsin Watch after being provided with questions. H. Dale Peterson, general counsel to the Farm Bureau, did not respond to interview requests.

“I see it as a great opportunity to show the Farm Bureau all the great work we’ve done,” quipped Lisa Doerr, the advisory group’s chairperson.

Doerr, who grows forage on her 80-acre Laketown farm, contends the group was not a governmental body and lacked decision-making powers, so its members aren’t subject to Wisconsin’s public records law. She denied Peterson’s request.

“If they want to push me, then bring it on,” Doerr said.

Bone Lake town Chairman Andy Brown already fulfilled the records requests.

“I don’t have anything to hide,” he said. “If they want to see my emails back and forth about how to make this happen, then fine.”

With a defense team at the ready, Brown says he isn’t worried. “This is an important test case, and somebody’s gonna have to be in front of that firing squad some time or another,” he said.  “And so if it’s us, it’s us.”

Wisconsin towns brace for next fight on local control over large farms is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto that attempts to lock in a school funding increase for 400 years drew outrage and surprise from his political opponents, but it’s just the latest creative cut in a state that’s home to the most powerful partial gubernatorial veto in the country.

“Everybody will shout and scream,” said former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, “but he’s got ’em.”

Wisconsin governors have the most expansive partial veto power in the country because, unlike in other states, they can strike nearly any part of a budget bill. That includes wiping out numbers, punctuation and words in spending bills to sometimes create new law that wasn’t the intention of the Legislature.

That’s exactly what the Democratic Evers did on Wednesday with a two-year state budget passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

The Legislature had language in the budget increasing the per pupil spending authority for K-12 public schools by $325 in the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years. Evers, a former state education secretary and public school teacher and administrator before that, vetoed the “20” and the hyphen to make the end date 2425.

The change means that until a future Legislature and governor undo it, the amount schools can spend through a combination of property taxes and state aid will increase by $325 annually until 2425. That’s farther in the future — 402 years — than the United States has been a country — 247 years.

“It’s creative for sure,” said Bill McCoshen, a lobbyist who previously worked under former Gov. Tommy Thompson.

Creative, but not unprecedented.

Reshaping state budgets through the partial veto is a longstanding act of gamesmanship in Wisconsin between the governor and Legislature, as lawmakers try to craft bills in a way that are largely immune from creative vetoes. Vetoes, even the most outlandish, are almost never overridden because it takes a two-thirds majority of the Legislature to do it.

Republican Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, during a Thursday interview on WISN-AM, vowed to try, though he admitted it would be difficult.

Vos called Evers’ 400-year veto “an unprecedented brand-new way to screw the taxpayer … that was never imagined by a previous governor and certainly wouldn’t by anybody who thinks there is a fair process in Wisconsin.”

Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in 2017 used his veto power to extend the deadline of a state program program from 2018 to 3018. That came to be known as the “thousand-year veto.” He also delayed the start date of another program by 60 years.

The Republican Thompson was known for his use of the “Vanna White” veto, named for the co-host of Wheel of Fortune who flips letters to reveal word phrases. Thompson holds the record for the most partial vetoes by any governor in a single year — 457 in 1991. Evers this year made 51.

Wisconsin’s partial veto is uniquely powerful because it allows the governor to change the intent of the Legislature, just as Evers did, said Kristoffer Shields, director of the Center on the American Governor at Rutgers University. Shields said he plans to cite the latest Evers veto when teaching about executive power.

“Many people in Wisconsin, I suspect, are surprised that the governor can do this,” Shields said. “And now that we know he can do this, that can lead to changes.”

Wisconsin’s partial veto power was created by a 1930 constitutional amendment, but it’s been weakened over the years, including in reaction to vetoes made by Thompson and Doyle.

Voters adopted a constitutional amendments in 1990 and 2008 that took away the ability to strike individual letters to make new words — the “Vanna White” veto — and eliminated the power to eliminate words and numbers in two or more sentences to create a new sentence — the “Frankenstein” veto. Numerous court decisions have also narrowed the veto power.

Rick Esenberg, director of the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, said he expected there to be a legal challenge to Evers’ 400-year veto.

“This is just a ridiculous way to make law,” Esenberg said.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with Esenberg’s group and undid three of Evers’ partial vetoes in 2020, but a majority of justices did not issue clear guidance on what was allowed. Two justices did say that partial vetoes can’t be used to create new policies. In August, the court flips from conservative to liberal control. That further clouds how it may rule on veto power, an issue that over the decades has drawn bipartisan support and criticism.

Even as questions about the legality of the veto swirl, conservatives are trying to benefit politically by arguing that the ever-increasing spending authority Evers enacted will open the door to higher property taxes.

“The veto would allow property taxes to skyrocket over the next 400 years,” Republican Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August said in a statement. “Taxpayers need to remember this when getting their tax bills this December.”

But Doyle, the former Democratic governor who issued nearly 400 partial vetoes over eight years, praised Evers for effectively restoring an automatic increase in school spending authority that had been in place starting in the 1990s. Doyle’s successor, Walker, and the GOP-controlled Legislature removed it.

“What Governor Evers did was masterful and really important and something that everybody should have expected him to do,” Doyle said. “I’m sure they’re kicking themselves over why they didn’t they see this little number thing.”

Wisconsin governor’s 400-year veto angers opponents in state with long history of creative cuts is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.