After Franklin’s public school administrator Judy Mueller announced her retirement the school board narrowed down the list of candidates for her replacement to three.

In April a school board member responded to a Franklin parent who raised concerns. The parent told the school board member in part:

I have found that the three candidates chosen are quite polarizing. None of the candidates are strong advocates for student and academic achievement. Instead, their focus is on pushing their own ideologies. I’m shocked we aren’t interviewing candidates that are focused on increasing math and reading scores here in Franklin. Perhaps we should take our time, and do our due diligence, to ensure we find the best candidate?

The school board member replied in part:

The search firm we used recommended a slate of 6 candidates which the Board (with the exception of Dr. Khan, he was out of town) interviewed last week Monday. That list was then narrowed to the 3 candidates you referred to in your email. This week, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we interviewed the finalists again, asking that they make a ten minute presentation to us on a specified topic; Recruitment, training and retention of highly qualified staff and with an equity, diversity and inclusion focus. Following these presentations, we interviewed the candidates again with a new set of questions, (all Board members were there for this as well as the final Thursday evening meeting). During the Thursday evening meeting the entire Board debated and debated regarding the best choice for the District. A decision was made, (this is what I am unable to share at this time) a contract to present was discussed and the meeting adjourned. The offer will be made to the finalist today by Mike Spragg, Board President. We do believe it will take a few days before the finalist accepts the contract as there may be some back and forth regarding it.

Take note of what the candidates were asked to discuss: Recruitment, training and retention of highly qualified staff and with an equity, diversity and inclusion focus.

While I appreciated the school board member’s willingness to communicate the mention about a focus on equity and diversity is ridiculous. I feared this might be an emphasis of the administration.

Christopher F. Rufo is founder and director of Battlefront, a public policy research center. He’s the foremost authority on Critical Race Theory (CRT) in America and has written the following that is very important:

There are a series of euphemisms deployed by (CRT) supporters to describe critical race theory, including “equity,” “social justice,” “diversity and inclusion,” and “culturally responsive teaching.” Critical race theorists, masters of language construction, realize that “neo-Marxism” would be a hard sell. Equity, on the other hand, sounds non-threatening and is easily confused with the American principle of equality. But the distinction is vast and important. Indeed, equality—the principle proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, defended in the Civil War, and codified into law with the 14th and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965—is explicitly rejected by critical race theorists. To them, equality represents “mere nondiscrimination” and provides “camouflage” for white supremacy, patriarchy, and oppression. 

|In contrast to equality, equity as defined and promoted by critical race theorists is little more than reformulated Marxism.

At the time I wrote “the aforementioned parent is correct. Priority #1 for this school board and the incoming superintendent should be student achievement. Disguised CRT should NOT be a focus, period.”

In May the school board announced it selected Annalee Bennin as the new district administrator starting July 1, 2022. Bennin Bennin had been the superintendent for the Sheboygan Falls District. In choosing Bennin the board dodged a bullet. Bennin couldn’t possibly be worse than the other two candidates.

Prior to the board’s decision, I received correspondences from folks about those being considered.

Here are some of the comments I’ve gotten about Corey Golla, most recently the superintendent at Menomonee Falls:

When all of Waukesha county schools went mask optional last spring Golla dug his heels in. MF was the only school district in all of Waukesha county to keep masks.Golla is a tool of the teachers union and the Progressive party.

You don’t move from Menomonee Falls to Franklin.If he gets in he will he will then in a year or two implement and divide up the grade schools.  One grade school for the 4K-5K, another for 1st grade and 2nd grade and so on. Getting rid of the schools as you know it. Scary thing is, with a backing of a liberal progressive board, he will get it done even if 20,000 residents oppose it, he will do it and not a damn thing can be done about it.

This guy will never ever, ever listen to the parents. He is told what to do by the union and the Democrats.

Look at him, how after 3 moms sworn in to the MF school board he announced leaving for Franklin as if it’s a done deal.

The school board spent $600,000 on air filter systems to “battle Covid.” No other district did. Golla still kept the kids masked up for a whole year.

I also heard from people in the know:

Golla was instrumental in keeping kids in masks while other surrounding districts made masks optional in schools.  This was done to continue receiving government funding and maintain Covid related policies, in direct opposition to parents’ requests to change to optional.

He condoned the segregation of students between vaccinated and unvaccinated in schools.

He supported contact quarantining of healthy kids well after other districts did away with the practice that was detrimental to the achievement of these students.

He instructed teachers and staff not to use any terms keywords like equity, SEL, or CRT in any correspondence so they could not be revealed in open record requests by the public.

Since 2016 average student testing scores have dropped in all MF district schools and the numbers have been skewed to make the district appear to have maintained adequate scores by not revealing all the metrics.

Candidate Stephen Plank ran the Burlington schools.  Both Oak Creek and Burlington school districts rate considerably lower on national comparisons done by Niche and other groups. Niche maintains in-depth profiles on every school and college in America. Another rap on Plank was that he presided over a racilaly hostil environment in the Burlington schools.

Comments I got about Bennin:

Young.

Energetic.

Positive.

Confident.

Inexperienced.

The Franklin school board opted for Bennin.

Here’s Bennin’s generous contract.

And finally…

Equity does not equal equality.

THE TOP 10 FRANKLIN STORIES OF 2022

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8) NEW SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT
9) FRANKLIN IS SAVING AMERICA WITH THE HELP OF…
10) THE STATE OF THE CITY