There is a proposal in Madison to allow schools to start before Labor Day in Wisconsin. Currently, schools are required to start after Labor Day unless they receive a waiver from the Department of Public Instruction. Durand-Arkansaw School Superintendent Greg Doverspike is supportive of starting before Labor Day. Over the last few years districts have been allowed to start before Labor Day under emergency rules from the Covid-19 pandemic. This is the last year those rules will be in effect.
City of Durand Department Heads and staff are already planning the 2024 city budget. City Council committees will be meeting in October to discuss budgets for all the departments. Durand Mayor Patrick Milliren says the Madison Street Project next year will be a big part of the budget. The city will be receiving an increase of nearly $100,000 in shared revenue from the state next year. The city is planning a public hearing on the budget in November.
The investigation into the system-wide service outages at HSHS and Prevea Health Hospital is expanding. The two hospital systems have been offline since earlier this week. The outage has caused problems for people looking to make appointments or follow-up with their doctors. The two hospitals are not saying what happened, though the investigation is now looking into a possible data breach. Prevea said in a statement that the "top priority is continuing to provide consistent, quality care to our patients and restoring our systems and applications for our colleagues as quickly as possible."
Chippewa Falls Schools are moving air conditioners into Hillcrest and Jim Falls Elementary Schools to deal with the summer heat. The school district yesterday said it is bringing in spot coolers to help cool down hot classrooms. A number of parents at Hillcrest and Jim Falls complained about the heat for their kids. Temperatures over the weekend are expected to be in the 90s. Chippewa Falls Schools say the spot coolers are not a permanent solution, adding that they cost 14 thousand-dollars a month and will only provide some relief from the heat.
An Eau Claire man is charged in federal court for being a felon in possession of a firearm. According to the US Department of Justice Office for Western Wisconsin, 25-year-old Nathaniel Larson possessed a loaded 9mm handgun on July 11th. Larson has felony charges dating back to 2016 in Eau Claire County. He also has felony cases in Trempealeau, Barron, and Rusk Counties. If convicted in federal court, Larson faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
As deer season approaches, the DNR is out with its annual forecast for hunters. DNR wildlife biologists say it was a mild winter in the West Central District, so the deer herd was not significantly impacted. That includes Pepin, Pierce, Buffalo, Dunn, Eau Claire, Chippewa and Trempealeau counties. The bow deer season starts September 16th. The gun deer season starts November 18th.
The chancellor at UW-La Crosse is stepping down. Chancellor Joe Gow yesterday said he is leaving the job at the end of this school year. Gow isn't leaving UW-La Crosse, he will remain on as a professor in the communications department. Gow is the longest-serving chancellor in the UW System, and is the second longest-serving chancellor in UW-La Crosse history. The school will start looking for a new chancellor in a few months.
Eight Wisconsin Red Cross volunteers are headed south. The Red Cross yesterday said the crew is going to Florida to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia. The storm made landfall yesterday as a Category Four hurricane. The Red Cross says two of the Wisconsin volunteers are from north-central Wisconsin, one is from northeast Wisconsin and the others are from the southern part of the state.
The roads throughout Wisconsin will start to fill up later today. Triple-A and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation are expecting a busy Labor Day travel weekend. Triple-A isn't saying just how many people it expects to travel this weekend, but they are expecting more people to hit the roads. Wis-DOT says all rest stops are open in the state, but the agency is warning about road construction. Today and tomorrow are the busiest getaway days. Monday is expected to be the busy day for people coming back home.
Minnesota state legislators are asking Governor Walz to order a special session to talk about the concerns regarding the state's new school resource officer's law. The new law says officers cannot be physical when restraining students unless there is bodily harm or death. This has led several police departments to pull their resource officers out of schools in the last few days. Minnesota Republicans say there needs to be a special session to clarify the concerns. Governor Walz says lawmakers are misinterpreting the law.
Cadott Schools might ask voters for more money next spring. The schools' administrator yesterday said they are creating a community-driven facility advisory committee to look at last spring's ten-million dollar tax hike to see if it will be enough. Administrator Josh Spaeth says the money is earmarked for a new career technical education center and classroom upgrades. No one is saying just how much more money Cadott Schools are looking for, or where that money will be spent. If there is a new referendum, voters will see it on their ballots next spring.
It's the latest sign that UW-Madison students are back in town. Police in Madison say they found 128 fake IDs during a sweep at a university bar Friday night. Police say there were a lot of underage drinkers at the Church Key bar when they stopped by for a check. Madison Police say they expect other young people also have fake IDs at other downtown and campus-area bars. Last year, Madison Police found nearly the same number of fake IDs when they checked in on State Street's City Bar at the start of the last school year.
A new report says public schools in Wisconsin are adding administrators, even as they lose students and can't find enough teachers. The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty yesterday released a report that shows a spike in administrative hires since 2017. WILL says most of those new administrators have something to do with diversity, equity, or inclusion. Wisconsin schools have added about three-thousand teachers and administrators over the past five years. Meanwhile, the same schools have lost over 30-thousand students in the same time frame.
A data breach currently being investigated by the University of Minnesota is now the subject of a federal class action lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed last Friday in U.S. District Court by a former student and a former employee. The pair claims the breach has had "serious consequences" for them and accused the university of failing to take adequate steps to protect their personal information. The university announced last week that it learned about the possible breach in July but didn't notify students or staff until recently.
State and federal investigators are warning Minnesotans about a possible scam that uses phone numbers that appear to belong to law enforcement. The FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension say the scammers impersonate members of their agencies to try to gain personal information. The callers may ask for Social Security numbers, banking information, and addresses by saying they're conducting an investigation. Both agencies say anyone approached by these scammers should ask for a callback number and then reach out to the FBI or the BCA to try to verify the caller's identity.
Believe it or not, the fall hunting seasons are just around the corner. Wisconsin's Department of Natural Resources this week urged hunters to get ready for their seasons by double-checking their licenses and double-checking their dates. Early goose season begins September 1st, which is Friday. Bear season opens next Wednesday, and archery season for deer opens on September 16th.
No comments:
Post a Comment