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The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

Frederica Freyberg:

I’m Frederica Freyberg. Tonight on “Here & Now,” we speak with a trauma specialist about what happened in Waukesha. Zac Schultz reports on how one northern Wisconsin school is innovating on special education. Student journalist, Kim Leadholm, reports on abortion policy in Wisconsin. It is “Here & Now” for November 26.

Announcer:

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

Frederica Freyberg:

It has been an emotional Thanksgiving week for the community of Waukesha. The driver of an SUV charged in connection with the deaths of at least six people and injuries to dozens more. People who were attending a downtown Christmas parade last Sunday. Bail was set at $5 million for 39-year-old Darrell Brooks of Milwaukee. The criminal complaint states it was clear Brooks intended to strike and hurt as many people as possible after barreling through barricades at the annual parade held in the heart of the city on Main Street. To help its community heal, city officials shut down schools, and some government services until next week. They are also offering grief counseling to anyone who needs help. Governor Tony Evers ordered flags at half-staff across the state. Waukesha and Wisconsin in mourning. Looking now at the aftermath of the Waukesha tragedy, what is known as “collective trauma” describes a situation that breaks norms and expectations that we have about an individual or society. A driver plowing through crowds during a holiday parade certainly fits. There is trauma born of confusion and uncertainty about what happened and why. Of course, it’s acute for people who were injured there or lost loved ones, but also for witnesses and the immediate community. What about the broader community? We turn to Scott Webb, who’s the trauma informed care coordinator at the Department of Health Services and the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Thank you for being here.

Scott Webb:

I appreciate this opportunity to talk.

Frederica Freyberg:

How do any of us make sense of what happened?

Scott Webb:

I don’t really think you can make sense. That’s one of the hallmarks of collective trauma is that it happens to wide groups of people, could be entire societies or entire community, and one of the biggest features of it is that it is hard to make sense of it, and so I think that it is natural for us to feel like, you know, we can’t wrap our brains around what happened, and it is confusing, and it throws us into this extreme state of confusion and uncertainty. That’s part of the reality of collective trauma.

Frederica Freyberg:

So for people who were at the parade, even as witnesses, how likely is it that they are traumatized and will experience symptoms of that?

Scott Webb:

I think it is very likely that most of the people that were there have been traumatized. Now, the way they respond to it is going to be very different, depending on a person’s makeup, their own experiences, maybe past traumas that go back to their childhood, and so there’s going to be a wide variety of responses to this traumatic event as horrific as it was. I think that we need to understand that the healing from trauma takes place with relationship, and that’s one of the things that we hopefully can get to talking about, the healing part of trauma, happens in the context of healthy, loving relationships. We come together in this pain.

Frederica Freyberg:

I was just about to ask, for those who were injured themselves, or lost loved ones, how do they heal?

Scott Webb:

I think a lot of this is grief. I think that we’re dealing with a grief which is a very powerful emotional reaction to loss. Through the pandemic, there’s been a lot of grieving. We lost loved ones. We lost what used to be before the pandemic happened, and then now with this, people were coming out of the pandemic, gathering for this festive occasion. We’re entering into the holiday season, there’s a lot of hope and expectation and excitement and then this horrific thing happened. So that adds to the layers of trauma we’ve experienced with the pandemic, and so the way people heal from it? They have to grieve. What I often — what I used to tell my clients when I was a psychotherapist many years ago is you have to feel it to heal it. You have to be able to acknowledge there is a loss, a grieving process that we have to go through. You do that, hopefully, within the context of loving relationships because, again, that’s how you heal most from most types of trauma, all types of trauma, is through those healthy, loving relationships. I think that you have to be able to find people that will care for you and let you talk about what you feel, what you’re going through, and that they are able to kind of bear witness to that and be there for you and we support each other that way. So it is just acknowledging that the grief is real. We can’t — we often try to avoid grief. We try to stay away from it, and I think it is important to really walk through that door of grief and really experience what it is feeling like, and sometimes you have to take time out of your day, like, between this time right here, this period of time, I’m going have that be grief time where I’m going to feel this and experience all the emotions of what happened because when you acknowledge that and you allow yourself to grieve, you move through that process a little bit quicker, but it is different for everybody. The grieving process, there’s no set recipe. For some people, it could be months. For some people, it could be years.

Frederica Freyberg:

Presumably, we only have a half minute left, but people are still in shock, those most acutely affected by the trauma of this, and then they would be expected to then move through that grieving and so what can you say to people who are kind of still in that place of immediate shock?

Scott Webb:

Well, I think the first thing is it’s okay not to be okay right now. We’ve been through a lot in the past two years with the pandemic, the violence we’ve seen in Kenosha, what happened in Waukesha so give yourself some grace and reach out to those who love you and be there for somebody else and just know that healing happens within that loving relationship.

Frederica Freyberg:

Scott Webb, thank you, thank you for joining us on this.

Scott Webb:

You’re very welcome. Thank you.

Frederica Freyberg:

In education coverage, it is a tale of two schools. One, a small charter serving special needs, middle, and high school students. The other, a traditional public school serving similar learners. They are both in the Minocqua district but worlds apart when it comes to funding and services. “Here & Now” reporter, Zac Schultz, shows us how and why the state budget line designated towards special education funding is woefully underfunded.

Man:

Good morning, Cody.

Zac Schultz:

Lakeland Star Academy is not your typical school. For starters, it is technically two charter schools and part of the Lakeland Union High School in Minocqua.

Teacher:

Later this week, we will explore —

Zac Schultz:

From inception, Lakeland Star was designed to serve middle and high school students with sensory needs, primarily students with a diagnosis on the autism spectrum.

Eric Mikoleit:

Right out of the gate, when they came through our front door, meeting their sensory needs.

Zac Schultz:

The first thing you might notice is each ceiling light is covered by a blue cape. Eric Mikoleit is the director. He says bright lights and noises can be a barrier to learning.

Eric Mikoleit:

If we would meet their sensory needs from acoustics and lightings and sounds — the many students on the spectrum — we knew they come regulated before we could even touch math and English.

Zac Schultz:

Indigo, the dog, roams the hall looking for pets and the occasional treat.

Eric Mikoleit:

Some of our students, Indigo is just — he’s there but some students really flock to that.

Zac Schultz:

For some students, the first class of the day is 45 minutes north at Scholl Community Impact Group, where working with horses forces kids to communicate verbally.

Student:

Cooper coming through.

Zac Schultz:

And learning to ride doubles as occupational therapy, teaching balance and coordination.

Eric Mikoleit:

We’ve seen great growth when it comes to communication in OT and just having a place to kind of relax.

Teacher:

All right. I have all your dinosaurs.

Zac Schultz:

Mikoleit says the biggest gains are not found in test scores, but in the personal growth of kids who may have never felt comfortable in a school environment before now.

Man:

Nice, Sam.

Eric Mikoleit:

They are increasing confidence. Where they’re looking at school now as not as an adversary.

Zac Schultz:

Lakeland Star was created four years ago because local parents did not like the services available for their children in the traditional public school setting. It’s modeled off of school in Minnesota called Lionsgate, and Mikoleit remembers his feeling during his first visit.

Eric Mikoleit:

The more they talked, it was jaw dropping, like, literally, I had to kind of — okay, we gotta go back to Wisconsin, you know, and it just went from there.

Zac Schultz:

The difference is in Minnesota the state provides the funding to run Lionsgate. As a Wisconsin charter school, money follows the Star Academy students over from the high school, but that isn’t enough to pay for the staffing they need.

Eric Mikoleit:

We have a full-time speech and language. We have a full-time occupational therapist. We have a full-time BCBA, which is unheard of in traditional public schools here in the state of Wisconsin.

Zac Schultz:

So the parents started fundraising. A local foundation came on board, then they held a golf tournament.

Eric Mikoleit:

When we had our first golf outing four years ago and we raised about, let’s say $400,000. No one knew what to expect. I think if we raised a dollar, great. If we raised $400,000, you got to be kidding me. Then the second year was almost double. Then the third year we had COVID and this past year was close to $1.3 million.

Zac Schultz:

It’s a stunning amount of money for a school with 38 students.

Eric Mikoleit:

I’ve never been in a community that have supported it the way they do.

Zac Schultz:

Mikoleit says their biggest problem now is a lack of space.

Eric Mikoleit:

We have a lot of phone calls. It’s tough to say “no.” It’s tough to tell families outside of our district, in our district that, sorry, we’re on a waiting list.

Zac Schultz:

Students who can’t get in to Star Academy go across the parking lot to Lakeland Union High School, where the majority of kids with special education needs are taught.

Rebecca Jablonski:

There’s no shortage of need.

Zac Schultz:

Rebecca Jablonski is the director of special education. She would love to be able to offer the same set of services.

Rebecca Jablonski:

Therapy dog, smaller case management sizes, more instruction available for speech and language, if I could have that here, that would be great. I would be in heaven.

Zac Schultz:

Her budget for 118 students is half that of Star Academy. Jablonski is happy for Stars’ fundraising and what it means for those kids, but it’s also frustrating.

Rebecca Jablonski:

But it doesn’t frustrate me because we don’t have it available. It frustrates me because I can’t offer it to all the students.

Zac Schultz:

But why not?

Rebecca Jablonski:

In comparison to the amount of services that special ed kids need, the amount of money that’s funded is very low.

Zac Schultz:

The problem is the state knowingly underfunds special education. But schools are required by law to provide the services so they have to take money from general education or shortchange special ed.

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick:

We’ve intentionally set this system up.

Zac Schultz:

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick is a civil rights lawyer who has sued multiple school districts on behalf of special education students in order to force schools to provide the services they need.

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick:

I hope I’m helping to change the system. Sometimes it is one step at a time. Sometimes it’s bigger picture.

Zac Schultz:

Spitzer-Resnick explains the way the state funds special education is each school submits their estimated costs to the state, and then the available money is split proportionally.

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick:

For every dollar that’s requested from every school district in special ed, we’re going to give 28 cents.

Zac Schultz:

Spitzer-Resnick says that 28% reimbursement level is the lowest in the nation for states that use that method. The federal government also shortchanges what they’ve promised for special education, contributing another 24% of costs. That adds up to 52% of the costs being covered leaving the rest for each school district to figure out on their own.

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick:

The legislature, sooner or later, unless it’s all going to crumble, needs to accept their responsibility to provide appropriate education for all our children.

Zac Schultz:

Funding levels are a budget decision. Republicans in the legislature have kept special education reimbursement to around 28% for the last decade. In the last school year, districts estimated $1.6 billion in services needed. The state provided just $450 million. Democratic Governor Tony Evers proposed a massive increase in special education spending in his last budget proposal. His plan would have increased state funding by $400 million a year, bringing reimbursement levels to 50%. Instead, Republicans added $85 million, which will bring reimbursement levels to 30%.

Rob Swearingen:

I think, overall, it was a pretty darn good budget.

Zac Schultz:

Rob Swearingen is a Republican in the Assembly and Lakeland Star’s biggest champion in the legislature.

Rob Swearingen:

I’m not an expert on autism. I can tell you this. It’s not going away, and the state better start addressing it more than what they are doing now.

Zac Schultz:

In the last two budgets, Swearingen has been able to get his colleagues to insert funding specifically for Lakeland Star. Governor Evers has vetoed that funding each time saying he does not want to pick winners and losers by targeting individual schools.

Rob Swearingen:

It was a personal gut punch to me from Governor Evers when he vetoed it the second time, and he claims winners and losers.

Zac Schultz:

Swearingen says other districts should look to copy Lakeland Star.

Rob Swearingen:

That model could be maybe duplicated in other parts of the state, but you certainly would have to have, you know, the community support.

Zac Schultz:

Eric Mikoleit says he’s been getting calls, but without million dollar fundraisers, just starting a charter school is not enough.

Eric Mikoleit:

That would be difficult in the current model to be able to replicate that without actually having changes in Madison and so forth in how we fund our schools.

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick:

When they start to siphon off money from already shortchanged public schools, that’s a problematic public policy decision.

Zac Schultz:

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick says even charter schools that are part of the larger district double up overhead costs and take away from the other students.

Jeff Spitzer-Resnick:

Now, I want to be clear. It doesn’t mean that’s a bad school. Doesn’t mean those kids aren’t getting a good education. It doesn’t mean that the parents and educators who formed it did it with ill-intent. They saw a sick system, unhealthy system, and they’re doing what they can to address it, but that’s not a systemic fix.

Zac Schultz:

Whether or not Lakeland Star Academy can be replicated, the larger question is whether their success with students should be considered exceptional or the baseline for what special education students deserve.

Rob Swearingen:

Where’s the benchmark? Where’s the start? Where’s the ceiling? Is this a high benchmark?

Zac Schultz:

There are more than 13,000 students diagnosed on the autism spectrum in Wisconsin, and Lakeland Star Academy is teaching fewer than 40 of them. In the last budget, Republicans prioritized $2 billion in tax cuts. The state currently has a $1.7 billion surplus. Rob Swearingen says just because Republicans won’t spend more on special education doesn’t mean they don’t care.

Rob Swearingen:

Core Republicans are going to always say we need more tax cuts, you know, but I guess I wouldn’t call — I wouldn’t paint them as anti-education.

Eric Mikoleit:

As they say, pay me now or pay me later type of model where, sure, there might be a sticker price when you first look at it.

Zac Schultz:

Eric Mikoleit says his students are all the evidence you need to prove it’s worth the cost. Another program at Lakeland Star is located in donated space at a nearby medical center. This is a lab where students do hands-on work to find out what real world jobs they may be suited for and what jobs they enjoy doing.

Rob Swearingen:

It is a business atmosphere. The kids actually have to punch in on the time clock.

Zac Schultz:

It’s one of Rob Swearingen’s favorite things about Lakeland Star.

Rob Swearingen:

These kids are learning real world skills that they can pick up on and move out into the community and have done so.

Zac Schultz:

There’s even a driving simulator where students can get their driver’s license. Mikoleit says most parents of his students never dreamed their children would drive a car to a job.

Eric Mikoleit:

That look was like, really Eric, you want to do driver’s ed in the north woods, students with developmental disabilities.

Zac Schultz:

Mikoleit says while they are not cheap, these are the programs that give these kids a chance to be full participants in society, making the expense worth every penny.

Eric Mikoleit:

What we are saving actually to the taxpayer, where we are not feeding a prison pipeline, where we’re not being additional cost to the healthcare system, where we’re addressing it now in a way where it actually is less money, etc., to the taxpayers, and that’s something — just has to flip, a lens that has to flip, and we hoping to continue with our success, that we can flip that lens.

Teacher:

Good job, everybody.

Zac Schultz:

Reporting from Minocqua, I’m Zac Schultz for “Here & Now.”

Frederica Freyberg:

This reporting sparked questions so we asked Zac to help answer some of them. We spoke with him before the holiday. Hey, Zac, what an interesting story. Thanks for that.

Zac Schultz:

Thank you, Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:

So Star Academy sounds really great, but the situation with special education funding in public schools in Wisconsin, what kind of a values choice is this to underfund it to this extent year after year for generations of students?

Zac Schultz:

Well, the question comes down to who is responsible for it? From the legislature’s point of view, they are putting funding into it, and then the law says it’s up to the school district to figure out how to make it work. And they have options at their disposal, but you’ve never seen a referendum for special education in any district I’ve seen in Wisconsin, and so their choices are made on the ground about what they can do best for their students, and there are some districts that have been sued because people, the parents and the lawyers, say they are not doing enough, and there are other districts that go as far as they possibly can, but I think most are caught in the middle of making the best choice for all of their students.

Frederica Freyberg:

How did Wisconsin get to the place where it mandates the services, but only pays for half of it, including the federal funding?

Zac Schultz:

Well, I mean, the classic phrase of the unfunded mandate is in place here, and some of this goes back almost a half century to when the first laws were put in place that created the right for these services to be provided for special education students. According to Spitzer-Resnick, he says back then, the estimates were about half of all students that would be able to receive these services never came into schools in the first place. So when they made some of those early projections about what percent and what the dollar figures would look like, they were wrong because it turned out to be a lot more than half of those students never came to the schools, and when parents found out their students had a right to come to school and a right to these services, more of them showed up than they were prepared for. That meant they did not increase the dollars, so the percentage actually slid down to compensate for that, and they’ve never made it up in the meantime.

Frederica Freyberg:

So if schools have to rob Peter to pay Paul, take from general education, if they want to make up for special education funding, who gets the short end here? Both?

Zac Schultz:

Yeah. Just depends on the individual district. I mean, in some cases, the parents and the students themselves may not know the full extent of what they are eligible to receive. They work with the district. They come up with their IEP, the individualized education plan, and it tells them what services that they have a right to receive and the district does their best to provide them. And there’s a question of, should they do more? Could they do more? Some parents know their rights and will assertively fight for their children to get more services. Sometimes to the chagrin of the school having to find out how to pay for it, and sometimes it’s just the parents and the students say this is best we have, so this is what we’ll accept.

Frederica Freyberg:

Is there any expectation at all given the current political split anything will change to make special education funding whole?

Zac Schultz:

Well, if there was ever a time in our state’s history that we had the money to make the jump in services, it would have been in this last budget, and it did not happen. I mean, we saw $2 billion in tax cuts. We are sitting on nearly $2 billion in a surplus for the state. There’s a large rainy day fund, and it just didn’t happen. There was no political will to see a dramatic increase. Even Governor Evers’ increase that he proposed only would have brought it up to 50% funding. It still wouldn’t have reached the original amount the state promised when they created this law in the first place. Advocates like Spitzer-Resnick say and others say well, that would have been a good step, but it wouldn’t even be the full amount reached, and there was not the political will to do that. It happens to be with the individual districts whether the political power is there to find support for that, and we saw in this district, there was some money set aside, but even that wouldn’t be enough to compensate for what they have to fundraise privately.

Frederica Freyberg:

One quick last question, do urban districts fare better in this than rural ones?

Zac Schultz:

If there’s more money coming in, then there’s more money to pay for some of the overhead. If you have administrators and specialists, in theory, more money flows down to provide for people providing the services. Rural districts are obviously going to struggle more with providing those overhead costs and having money left over to provide all the services needed.

Frederica Freyberg:

Wow. Zac Schultz, thanks very much. Thanks for your reporting.

Zac Schultz:

Thanks, Fred.

Frederica Freyberg:

We talked with Zac before the holiday.

Coming up next week, the U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments in what’s described as the most influential abortion case in nearly 50 years. The high court’s action on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health could overturn Roe v. Wade and criminalize abortions across the country including in Wisconsin. “Here & Now” student journalist, Kim Leadholm, spoke with advocates on both sides of the issue.

Tanya Atkinson:

We are facing the most serious threat to abortion access in this country in 50 years, and certainly in the state of Wisconsin.

Frederica Freyberg:

Tanya Atkinson from Wisconsin Planned Parenthood supports abortion access and Gracie Skogman with Wisconsin Right to Life does not. They weigh in on the high court case.

Gracie Skogman:

It would with change everything here in Wisconsin, and we believe that it would put this back into the state’s control.

Kim Leadholm:

The case to be heard before the high court is a challenge to a Mississippi law that bans almost all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. This case could overrule Roe v. Wade and allow states to restrict pre-viability abortions. Wisconsin has had a law on the books since 1849 criminalizing abortion. It is not being enforced because of Roe v. Wade. However if Roe is overturned, abortion could once again become a crime in the state of Wisconsin.

Gracie Skogman:

What we believe at Wisconsin Right to Life and in the pro-life movement is there is no constitutional right to an abortion and there’s also no federal law that enshrines that right. So we believe that that Roe v. Wade decision was judicial overreach.

Tanya Atkinson:

We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that patients who need an abortion in Wisconsin can still turn to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, and that we can help make sure that they are connecting to places where they can have a legal abortion and they’re connecting safely.

Kim Leadholm:

In Texas, there is a heartbeat law making abortion illegal after six weeks. This case is currently being considered by the U.S. Supreme Court and could hint at what the court may decide in the Dobbs case.

Gracie Skogman:

The heartbeat case in Texas does not directly challenge Roe in the same way that Dobbs does, but I believe it will be very insightful. I certainly hope that we see an overturning of Roe v. Wade, but I don’t know if I can go so far as to say that I expect that.

Tanya Atkinson:

I do think that people across the state of Wisconsin are very concerned about what’s happening, and I do anticipate as the elections grow closer and people are looking at who their elected officials are, they are going to be very in tune to what the different candidates, where the different candidates stand on accessing safe and legal abortion in Wisconsin.

Kim Leadholm:

A decision in the case that directly challenges Roe v. Wade and possibly Wisconsin abortion law is expected by the end of June. For “Here & Now,” I’m Kim Leadholm.

Frederica Freyberg:

The Dobbs case goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next Wednesday.

That’s our program tonight. Thanks for joining us. Have a good holiday weekend.

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