Inmates to run asylum!

When Jack Nicholson, in the movie As Good as it Gets, tells the nice neighbor lady to “Sell crazy someplace else,” she must have set up shop in Madison WI.

Madison is stocking up on crazy as if it were triple-ply toilet paper in a pandemic. Its public schools are hoarding in bulk. No wonder school board president Gloria Reyes is quitting. But then, so are more and more parents.

Freedom Inc. runs Madison’s public schools. They made that clear when their strike force of social justice warriors noisily F-bombed her residence one night this past June (2020).  (“They’re in front of my house!” Reyes alarmed.) Their harassment worked. Days later, the former police officer flipped; police would be expelled from the city’s four troubled public high schools.

Another victory for Defunders of the Police. The only thing missing was the surrender ceremony on the deck of the U.S.S. Missouri.

Bonus points for kids wearing GPS ankle monitors

The cart being put before the horse (to stoop to another cliché) the school district is forced to devise a new school safety plan. Because it doesn’t have one now. (Maybe the only reason to thank Wuhan China for their gift.) Freedom Inc. (did you doubt it?) has a plan. It amounts to this: 

An oversight committee would oversee investigations of district staff — the putative adults in the room — should they discriminate when they discipline the kids or call in police to quell a disturbance. Who determines whether the action is discriminatory?

The oversight committee! Who constitutes the oversight committee? Six kids. But not just any six kids. “Six youth advocates who have been disenfranchised by discriminatory discipline practices in the past — led by a member of Freedom Inc.” (“Disenfranchised”?) In plain language:

The troublemakers would be in charge of disciplining teachers, principals, and aides!

Now THAT’s just crazy! The Werkes is indebted to the Wisconsin State Journal for the details.

The committee would have complete decision-making power over school safety and accountability policies within the district; oversee all district investigations of student, parent or family member complaints against school staff; and establish a process to protect students against retaliation after filing a complaint, among other measures.

Have your team talk to our team

A rival proposal developed by school social workers isn’t much better. “School-based teams would determine whether the school district has decision-making authority before calling on local law enforcement.”

If law enforcement is needed, the school-based team would contact the central office critical response team, which consists of the district’s director of operations, security director and other behavioral health experts.

Get it? Kids are brawling in the lunch room. Teams are convened. They talk. Discuss. Debate. Because nobody is in charge except the kids brawling in the lunch room. 

Blaska’s Bottom Line: Madison, you voted another $350 million on this hot mess in the November 3 referendum. You get what you pay for. Two seats of the seven seats are up in the April 6 election, including Reyes’.

Will it make any difference?