Here & Now

Here & Now for June 10, 2022

Announcer:

The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Jack Harkner:

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to own the marsh for myself and run it myself.

Zac Schultz:

The draw of rural Wisconsin communities to retain young people. The undue burden of banning abortion for people of color and how to keep schools safe as parents of children in the Uvalde massacre speak out on gun control.

I’m Zac Schultz filling in for Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” we hear from the state’s Office of School Safety about how to prepare for the worst, an economist describes the disproportionate impacts of banning abortion and a look at why young people from rural Wisconsin decide to stay in their hometown. It’s “Here & Now” for June 10th.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.

Kimberly Rubio:

We told her we loved her and we would pick her up after school. I can still see her walking with us toward the exit. In the reel that keeps scrolling across my memory, she turns her head and smiles back at us to acknowledge my promise and then we left. I left my daughter at that school and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Zac Schultz:

Parents of children killed in Uvalde, Texas, 19 children in total, testified before Congress this week. In the wake of the second deadliest school shooting in the nation’s history, lawmakers in Washington are being pressed to act. Earlier this week Democrats in the House passed gun control legislation that includes increasing the age requirement for purchasing semi-automatic rifles but in the Senate, the threat of a Republican filibuster has a bipartisan group focusing on a smaller package of changes including more background checks for young adults and enhancing school security. To find out what that means for Wisconsin, we’re joined by Trisha Kilpin, the director of the Office of School Safety in the Wisconsin Department of Justice. Thank you for your time today.

Trisha Kilpin:

Thanks for having me.

Zac Schultz:

Let’s start with what message did you send out to Wisconsin schools in the immediate aftermath of the Uvalde shooting?

Trisha Kilpin:

We have consistently been sending messages to Wisconsin schools to help them engage in best practices for school safety. School safety is best understood as a comprehensive safety model and that includes helping to ensure that kids feel both physically safe in their building. They know the doors are locked and they know that they will be safe from harm. And then psychologically safe as well where they feel a sense of connection and belonging in their buildings and they know that when problems arise, the staff will help and support them and protect them. So we continue our work to let schools know about what some of those model practices are and how to make sure we were hitting all mission areas of protection, which would include preventing violence, protecting kids from harm, mitigating the trauma effects if something does occur and then our response and recovery efforts.

Zac Schultz:

We interviewed a former teacher who now works for the Department of Public Instruction last week on “Here & Now” and she told us active shooter drills can be terrifying for both staff and students. How do you balance the need to practice such drills with the psychological damage it can inflict?

Trisha Kilpin:

We want to make sure that if an incident occurs that we’re able to respond not — have thought through our response so it’s not for the first-time that people are thinking how to keep themselves safe. That said, it’s super important that our drills are what I would call “no drama, no trauma.” We know there are things we can do to practice the drills such as a lockdown. The lockdown is the basis for most drills and it means lock the door, turn off the lights and sit quietly or sit in an area of the room quietly and most importantly, listen to your teacher. So that staff can give instructions to kids about what to do next. The types of drills that are done in school should be progressive and there is great value from drills such as tabletop drills is what we call them. They are talking through if this would happen, what would we do. For youngest children, it would be what we call “when then” drills about if that would happen, then what would we do next and practicing.

Zac Schultz:

Congress is currently debating a series of proposals that could include additional funding for school security. What would that mean for Wisconsin schools? How should they use that money if it does arrive?

Trisha Kilpin:

Most of the funding Im hearing about would be in the form of grants. We are able to use some of those grants. We have been so far. Here in Wisconsin, we’re also hoping that we are able to get stable and predictable state funds for our office. Our office is small. We have several projects going on with federal grants such as a critical incident response grant right now where we’re training teams to be engaging in best practices if things were to occur that were traumatic for our students. And we also have a threat assessment grant that we’re going to be digitizing some of our materials. Those are federal grants. We would welcome more opportunities for federal dollars and we would like the predictability of state dollars in order to continue our work.

Zac Schultz:

When people hear about school safety grants, they usually think about hardening a school like bullet proofing or locking down doors or more security. Would that be involved in this as well?

Trisha Kilpin:

That’s important to make sure that we have secure entrances but equally important is to think about what we call prevention or upstream prevention where we’re building school cultures where kids feel a sense of belonging and they feel that they like their school to be safe. They feel safe at school and then building that culture of help seeking so if problems emerge, kids are likely to tell an adult, tell a trusted person so we can intervene and get the child who is demonstrating those types of concerns the help they need and deserve.

Zac Schultz:

Some Republicans have proposed arming teachers. Does your office have a position on this idea?

Trisha Kilpin:

I believe that comprehensive school safety must include all aspects as I mentioned before making kids psychologically and physically safe. I think being a teacher is a very complex and difficult job and I would support making sure that we look at all aspects of school safety before we consider arming teachers.

Zac Schultz:

We only have a few seconds left. What about school resource officers? There is some controversy about whether they help in the long, holistic sense or the value of them in the threat of an active shooter.

Trisha Kilpin:

School resource officers, when they have a relationship with the school that’s clearly defined – they have a memorandum of understanding that directs their actions and how they would respond and when they would intervene – can be highly effective in schools and I would hope that we wouldn’t stop having school resource officers but instead invest in the type of training and support we need in schools and law enforcement in order to collaborate and function well.

Zac Schultz:

Trish, thanks for your time today.

Trisha Kilpin:

Thank you.

Zac Schultz:

Also in Washington a House committee began broadcasting its findings of a yearlong investigation into the January 6th attacks on the U.S. Capitol. The 90-minute hearing included bipartisan statements from committee members, a timeline of events, never before seen footage from the violence of that day and testimony from the hundreds of witnesses the committee has interviewed.

William Barr:

You can’t live in a world where the incumbent administration stays in power based on its view, unsupported by specific evidence, that the election — that there was fraud in the election.

Liz Cheney:

There is no room for debate. Those who invaded our Capitol and battled law enforcement for hours were motivated by what President trump had told them. That the election was stolen and that he was the rightful president. President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.

Zac Schultz:

Back in Wisconsin, Donald Trump’s baseless allegations of voter fraud led Assembly Speaker Robin Vos to create the Office of the Special Counsel to investigate the 2020 election. The head of that office was held in contempt of court today by a Dane County judge. Former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman is being sued by a group accusing his office of destroying public records. Gableman was ordered to take the stand today but instead, he accused the judge of being partisan and refused to answer questions.

Michael Gableman:

All of a sudden, I somehow think that my personal rights are at stake, too.

Frank Remington:

Mr. Gableman.

Michael Gableman:

Yes, Judge Remington.

Frank Remington:

You have had a long and storied career serving the public. Both as a — let me finish please.

Michael Gableman:

Sure. If you’ll let me finish.

Frank Remington:

No.

Michael Gableman:

Ok.

Frank Remington:

This is my courtroom.

Michael Gableman:

Right.

Frank Remington:

You had a courtroom in Burnett County.

Michael Gableman:

I did.

Frank Remington:

You had a courtroom in the east wing of the state Capitol. I do not need to tell you what — how I expect you to control yourself and the behavior that I expect of a witness on this stand.

Michael Gableman:

You have a right to conduct and control your courtroom, judge but you don’t have a right to act as an advocate for one party over the other. I want a personal counsel. If you are putting jail on the table, I want a personal — I want an attorney to represent me personally. I will not answer any more questions. I see you have a jail officer here. You want to put me in jail, Judge Remington, Im not going to be railroaded.

Zac Schultz:

A month ago, news leaked that the U.S. Supreme Court was planning to overturn Roe v. Wade ending the constitutional protection of a woman’s right to abortion. That final decision is expected to be released sometime this month and abortion advocates and experts are preparing for a post Roe landscape. Joining us now is Tiffany Green, assistant professor at UW-Madison’s Department of Population Health Sciences. Thanks for joining us.

Tiffany Green:

Thank you for having me.

Zac Schultz:

We don’t typically get this kind of advance notice on such a monumental ruling from the court. How have supporters and researchers been using the last month?

Tiffany Green:

I think it’s important to ground this conversation in the idea that many of us who research this topic and/or those who are abortion advocates and reproductive justice supporters knew this day was coming quite a long time ago. Particularly when we saw the composition of the court change and the fact that there are people in the United States that have been living in a post Roe world for a very long time. States have been chipping away at abortion access, including trap laws which impose different kinds of standards on providers or abortions that would be provided for those with a similar medical procedure. We have mandatory waiting periods which impose 24, 48 and sometimes 72 hour waiting periods for abortion, making people go for more than one visit. All those things have eroded access to abortion, in addition to many clinics closing. So what I would say is that although the fall of Roe will certainly be devastating, many people in the United States have been living in a post Roe world for a very long time.

Zac Schultz:

And because of that truth, you have been able to do research that determines who’s impacted when a clinic closes. If Wisconsins clinics are forced to close because we go back to the 1849 law on the books that would eliminate virtually all abortion in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois would still have clinics but what does that mean for people who would need to travel even further to obtain that healthcare?

Tiffany Green:

Sure. There have been a number of scholars including those at Wisconsin, former graduate student Joanna Venator and Professor Jason Fletcher have done work in this area showing that distance is a key indicator of people’s access the abortion. It makes it harder to get abortions. So what will people do? I think, one, people in the north of our state always have had a challenge getting abortions because most of the clinics where that is available are in our neck of the woods in Madison and Milwaukee. That’s always been a problem. I think some people will obviously go to Illinois where the laws are very different governing access to abortion. For people that are unable to cross the border or people that are unable to get to other states, I think it is going to be a real challenge to get an abortion given that we also have a number of systems that provide healthcare for people with the capacity to get pregnant. They’re Catholic and they don’t provide that vital service. So I think it is a problem now and it’s going to continue to be a challenge after the fall of Roe.

Zac Schultz:

We use the broad term of woman but there is a lot of subgroups within that category: economic, racial, all other categories. Who is affected the most?

Tiffany Green:

I want to be clear that those of us in this space recognize not just cis women get pregnant, transmen and nonbinary folks get pregnant and they have even harder access getting to these services given the way our healthcare system is structured. So I want to say that. But essentially people that have resources are going to likely be able to get abortions. That’s not to say they never have challenges but the people that are going to be most affected are those that are poor, those that are essential workers, those that have tough work schedules that are not able to get out of it. Those who don’t have resources. You know, and they are – because of the way our society is structured – those people are going to be disproportionately Black and brown and indigenous and we’re going to see those disparities exacerbated.

Zac Schultz:

There have been studies that examine what that does to a woman’s ability to participate in the workforce or to get further education and escape poverty. Is that lost in the typical debate about abortion that we hear at, maybe, the congressional level?

Tiffany Green:

Sure, I think what we get caught up in is trying to parse people’s reasons for having abortions. I think as a researcher, I can kind of step back and say okay, regardless of how you feel about abortion on a moral level, we have very clear evidence that limiting access to abortion impacts pregnant people’s health and well-being and their economic outcomes. This is just a fact, right? That’s — we can debate about the morality of abortion, but the effects of abortion or limiting access have been very well established and as we said, they can lead to adverse financial outcomes. They can lead to poor pregnancy-related outcomes. Those outcomes are exacerbated among Black and/or indigenous people so there have been studies that show that laws that limit access to abortion can increase levels of pre-term births, death from congenital abnormalities among Black infants of Black women. So this isn’t — that’s not debatable. The science is always evolving and growing but the fact that we have a very robust body of evidence that shows there are negative implications to restricting abortion is not really debatable.

Zac Schultz:

Tiffany Green, thank you very much for your time today.

Tiffany Green:

You’re very welcome.

Zac Schultz:

Governor Tony Evers is calling the legislature in for a special session later this month for the purpose of repealing the 1849 Wisconsin law criminalizing abortion. Republican Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu already stated the chamber will gavel out of that session without action on the bill.

In other state news, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has appointed attorney Don Millis to be the newest member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission replacing Dean Knudsen, who stepped down suddenly last month.

Now we turn to a reporting project funded in part by the Otto Bremer Trust where we’ve been working to examine a mix of rural issues. As part of this project, we have gotten help from the students from the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Lab at Black River Falls High School. One of the issues we’ve been investigating is the population decline in Wisconsins rural counties. Last week we heard from five high school students who were deciding whether they wanted to stay in rural Wisconsin after high school. Tonight we have the story of young adults who faced a similar choice.

Jack Harkner:

Cranberry vines are super resilient.

Zac Schultz:

Jackson County is cranberry country and Jack Harkner was born into the business.

Jack Harkner:

I think it goes back to my great grandpa.

Zac Schultz:

His whole life has been focused on taking over the family farm.

Jack Harkner:

Ever since I was a kid, I always wanted to own the marsh for myself and run it myself and do all the things that my dad got to do cuz I thought those were the coolest things ever.

Zac Schultz:

Growing up out in the country, it took a while for Jack to realize the nearby city of Black River Falls was still a small town.

Jack Harkner:

I thought Black River was a big city. Eau Claire was ginormous, like, about the size of New York and I was like, whoa.

Zac Schultz:

Eventually he made it to New York City and immediately missed the openness of the marsh.

Jack Harkner:

I went on a New York trip in high school and I absolutely hated it. I thought there were way too many people around.

Zac Schultz:

Jack’s first stop after high school was to move to Appleton to attend Fox Valley Technical College and surprisingly, he likes it.

Jack Harkner:

I actually really like the Appleton area. There’s enough people to get enough businesses where you don’t have to travel. You know, you want to go shopping, you don’t have to drive 45 minutes to a mall but everyone goes to bed around 9:00.

Zac Schultz:

But Jack has no plans to move to the city full-time. He’s learning to be an electrician as both a backup career and a useful skill on the farm.

Jack Harkner:

If the marsh goes down, I still have something but also on the marsh, we do a lot of stuff.

Zac Schultz:

Jack says a memory from five years ago cemented his faith in rural Wisconsin. One November morning his school bus rolled over.

Jack Harkner:

Everybody who was on the highway stopped, pulled over, made sure all the kids were okay. Hey, do you want to get in our cars and warm up cuz it was cold. I think that’s a big thing about – that you wouldn’t find in a big city. I think that’s a big part of rural, Black River Falls is everyone is like, hey, let’s help each other.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I was on the left side of the bus and it flipped onto the right side so when I lifted up my head, I was on the windows that were on the ground.

Zac Schultz:

Jenna Quackenbush was on the bus that morning but the crash made a different impression on her.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I was still calm and I didn’t even cry. I just heard all the — like the younger children were crying and I helped them get off the bus.

Zac Schultz:

She says the crash changed her life.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I realized after that I really liked helping people.

Zac Schultz:

Soon after Jenna started taking classes to be an emergency medical technician and soon found herself working for the Black River Falls Fire Department.

Jenna Quackenbush:

It is exciting because you never know what’s going to happen but you never know what call will be a big call.

Man:

I’m going to tell you guys that you are dispatched to a patient who has overdosed on an unknown medication.

Jenna Quackenbush:

Have you ever had this happen to you before?

Zac Schultz:

For the moment, she has an apartment in La Crosse while she attends Western Technical College to become a paramedic. City life is an adjustment compared to growing up in the woods.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I like rural Wisconsin because I like to be able to have my windows open and not feel like people are looking in but yeah, La Crosse, I close the blinds at night but here I like having space.

Zac Schultz:

Jenna says emergency calls in her hometown actually feel different.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I think in a city it’s more fast paced. Everyone is trying to move really fast and Im sure if you have calls backed up, you’re going to try and move through things faster but here we can kind of take our time. It’s almost more homey in a way. I don’t know how else to explain it but — just, people feel more heartfelt.

Kelly Nieman:

Did you graduate now or are you a senior?

Girl:

I’m a senior.

Kelly Nieman:

You’re a senior. That’s what I saw on Facebook. I was like, what? How did that happen? I love being part of a small town because I do know a lot of people and a lot of people know me.

Zac Schultz:

Kelly Nieman is on a first name basis with a lot of people in Black River Falls.

Kelly Nieman:

She’s got two little boys, right?

Girl:

Yes.

Kelly Nieman:

How old are they now?

Girl:

I think they’re ten months.

Kelly Nieman:

Ok.

Zac Schultz:

As the owner of Studio 107, she gets everyone looking their best.

Kelly Nieman:

I like people walking in the door and everybody — hi Carol. How’s it going today? Bye Sue, have a good day.

Zac Schultz:

After high school, Kelly moved to Eau Claire for college but soon switched to cosmetology school, in part to get back home a couple years earlier.

Kelly Nieman:

I just never really wanted to go anywhere else and so I didn’t think past that. I just wanted to go get my education and come back here and work and live life in Black River.

Zac Schultz:

Now she owns the salon where she started as a receptionist. If she ever thinks Black River doesn’t offer enough, the drive to Minneapolis will change her mind.

Kelly Nieman:

Every year that I go there, I get nervous driving. Sweaty palms, gripping the steering wheel hoping the six lanes of traffic you can handle. But I have no desire to move to a big city.

Zac Schultz:

Kelly says the draw of family always pulled her back to Black River.

Kelly Nieman:

My roots are deep here.

Zac Schultz:

Once in a while, Kelly sees an empty store front in Eau Claire and thinks, what if?

Kelly Nieman:

I think about that sometimes like how my life might have been differently. And I don’t know where it would have taken me. You know, if I couldn’t get a job in Black River right away or if living in Eau Claire for four years maybe I would have decided I liked Eau Claire and stayed there. I’m not sure but that’s not what happened.

Max Hart:

You don’t want to ever live life second guessing or always saying what ifs.

Zac Schultz:

Max Hart almost didn’t come back home.

Max Hart:

My dad didn’t want me to farm. If he knew what I was doing, he probably wouldn’t be happy. I’m not quite sure.

Zac Schultz:

Max grew up on a small dairy farm.

Max Hart:

Typical farm kid.

Zac Schultz:

His parents pushed him to go to college.

Max Hart:

Im the first generation in my family to go to college and my dad, he instilled in me that you can always come home and farm but he wanted me to go to college.

Zac Schultz:

At the end of his junior year of college, Max’s father died in a motorcycle accident.

Max Hart:

It was a lot to handle. It was a tough summer milking cows. This is my mom and I and him not being there.

Zac Schultz:

That fall, he went back to school and the cows went to market.

Max Hart:

It was tough to see the livelihood of my parents’ farm go down the road in a couple of cattle trailers. I went back to school and I never dreamed I’d be coming back here.

Zac Schultz:

Eventually Max and his mother bought some cattle. There was no milking but the farm was alive again.

Max Hart:

Felt pride.

Zac Schultz:

Max got a job as an agricultural loan officer at a bank and he lives just down the road from his mom.

Max Hart:

So I actually live right halfway between the two houses I grew up in so I haven’t moved very far.

Zac Schultz:

Max is also carrying on another family tradition by serving on the county board.

Max Hart:

Public service has been ingrained in my family for a long time. So it goes back generations. My great grandpa Hart was on the county board. My grandma Hart was town clerk. My dad was a town chairman and supervisor. My mom has been the clerk and a treasurer. My sister’s the clerk in her township.

Zac Schultz:

In his personal life, Max symbolizes the locals who decide to stay in rural Wisconsin. In his public life, Max has to figure out how to keep more people from moving away.

Max Hart:

A lot of my friends that went to college didn’t come back home.

Zac Schultz:

Jack Harkner says he knew early on a lot of his friends from high school wouldn’t be sticking around.

Jack Harkner:

It’s like, I’ll see you when you come home and visit your parents and stuff like that.

Zac Schultz:

Jenna Quackenbush says career choices led many of her classmates to the cities.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I think a lot of people believe that if they want to get a very successful job that they need to move to a bigger city.

Zac Schultz:

Kelly Nieman says nearly half of her graduating class left town.

Kelly Nieman:

It’s probably about 50/50. I could be wrong but I feel like about half of our class isn’t here and about half of them are here still.

Max Hart:

It’s easy to move to the cities. It’s so convenient. It’s 5 to 10 minutes to the local grocery store. There’s so many amenities in the urban areas. So what brings them back to the rural areas?

Zac Schultz:

The answer for each has to do with family.

Jenna Quackenbush:

I feel like it’s more my family here cuz I love them so much. I got to visit them all the time so that really draws me back to here.

Jack Harkner:

There’s a lot of factors about people leaving and if they come back or not. Mine was the marsh. That’s the reason Im coming back.

Max Hart:

One thing about living or growing up and living around here, you have all the resources and contacts. You don’t have to learn new people or places or new traits. So it’s convenient. Not saying I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but I really enjoy living around here. Especially the farm, I really enjoy the farm.

Kelly Nieman:

When I think about the people that are here, I think it’s more of a choice. The ones I know and interact with, anyway. I’m pretty sure they feel similar to me. Their family is here. They grew up here. They like it here. So they stay here.

Zac Schultz:

Reporting from Black River Falls, Im Zac Schultz for “Here & Now.”

For more on this and other issues facing Wisconsin, visit our website at PBSwisconsin.org and then click on the news tab. That is our program for tonight. Frederica Freyberg will be back next week. Have a great weekend.

Announcer:

Funding for “Here & Now” is provided by the Focus Fund for Journalism and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.