Washington Island School District Not Pursuing Expeditionary Learning

• Washington Island School District will no longer move forward with its Expeditionary Learning (EL) curriculum. The school participated in an exploratory year with the program, but decided not to continue. Superintendent Tim Raymond said the company that developed the EL program didn’t fulfill its obligations to the school in the first year.

“We had high expectations going into this,” Raymond said. “We vetted EL out as much as they vetted us out and at the end of the day we came to a mutual conclusion.”

EL is a project-based school curriculum that focuses on student problem solving, citizenship and critical thinking.

A full five-year contract would have cost more than $50,000, plus travel expenses of teachers going to visit EL schools and attend conferences and training sessions. The one-year exploratory year cost $10,100, but the school was refunded $3,800 of it.

Raymond said the school district will continue working on ways to engage students in the classroom.

“We had a number of teachers and parents explore and visit EL schools and high quality schools, and we came back with a lot,” Raymond said. “It was truly worth the exploration. I’m so glad we did it. Now we get to create our learning design, we get to create and own our culture of learning.”

• The University of Wisconsin – Green Bay received a grant for $126,150 to control invasive phragmites, remove accumulated sediment and re-establish native beach vegetation along the Eastern shore of Green Bay. The funding came through the Sustain Our Great Lakes Program, which awarded more than $8 million to 29 projects this year. More than $1 million was awarded to Wisconsin projects.

• The Wisconsin Department of Justice and Division of Criminal Investigation were part of an FBI-led child sex trafficking operation that led to 100 arrested suspects in Wisconsin and 10 rescued children in Wisconsin.

The operation was conducted in Milwaukee, Madison and the Fox Valley. During last year’s operation, six children were rescued and almost 60 people were arrested.

“Children rescued as a result of these types of operations are often vulnerable and have been misled with promises of food, shelter and a future, and often times, love, only to be ensnared into a life of isolation, intimidation, violence and sex trafficking,” Wisconsin Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen said in a press release.