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The Waukesha School District Administration Building in Waukesha, Wisconsin, June 23, 2022. Coburn Dukehart/Wisconsin Watch
Since moving to the Waukesha School District in 2021, Erica Kochanski has been keeping a close eye on the district’s school board.
That same year, the district drew national attention when it decided not to participate in a federal program that provides free school meals to families, and has since been in the spotlight for its response to LGBTQ+ issues.
But what has angered Kochanski is the district’s recent decision to attend a school board summit hosted by the conservative law firm Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL).
Four of the board’s nine members attended the April event, which the district covered at its expense by $600.
Kochanski believes taxpayer money should not have been used to send President Kelly Piacek, Anthony Zenobia, Kari Kozlowski and Betty Koenig to partisan meetings.
Kochanski raised his concerns at a school board meeting in June and then followed up with an email.
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In a June 13 email response to Kochanski obtained by WPR, Piacek, Koenig and Kozlowski defended their attendance. They compared the WILL Summit to workshops for board members hosted by the Wisconsin School Boards Association.
“While I agree that board members should not use district funds to participate in partisan events, I am not aware of this having occurred,” Piacek wrote.
“While WILL often represents a constitutionally conservative interpretation of the law, to my knowledge it is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that takes on many legal matters pro bono and has a strong reputation for financial transparency,” Piacek continued.
WILL describes itself as interested in “individual liberty, equality under the law, constitutional government and the rule of law, economic freedom, and education reform.”
Part of WILL’s mission focuses on challenging education policy, focusing on shifting public spending on education from a public school district model to one in which “education dollars follow students wherever school they attend.”
The group opposes public employee unions, opposes federal programs that direct public education, and promotes classroom transparency and parental rights regarding curriculum decisions related to issues such as critical race theory.
WILL often uses lawsuits or threats of lawsuits targeting school districts to further its policy goals.
Past lawsuits and threats of lawsuits have targeted Wisconsin school districts over issues including policies regarding transgender students, Title IX policies, transportation for private school students, COVID closures, union issues and school choice issues.
Kochanski says he hasn’t been able to get an answer from the district about whether it would be appropriate for school board members to attend.
“And we just didn’t get a clear view that there were any checks or balances on the spending of taxpayer funds,” she said.
Less than a month after Kochanski confronted the Waukesha School Board about the matter, the board voted 8-1 to terminate his membership in the Wisconsin School Boards Association, whose mission is to “advance education by supporting the tradition of local school control in the state’s schools.”
During the discussion, Waukesha School Board members said the state organization’s actions do not reflect local values.
The change is coming as local school boards become more involved with right-wing groups.
The changes taking place in Waukesha are happening as WILL becomes more involved with the local school board.
Corey Brewer, an attorney with WILL and director of the firm’s American Education Recovery Project, said the work being done in conjunction with school boards is to provide resources on legal and policy issues.
“We realized there was a demand and there was a space that wasn’t being filled,” Brewer said.
The summit included several sessions, including one on empowering school board members. According to the description, “This presentation is designed for school board members who want to expand their knowledge base and increase their decision-making capabilities by hearing about resources beyond traditional avenues such as state school board associations and district administrations.”
Other sessions discussed parental rights, students’ gender identity and equality in the classroom, as well as “schools’ legal obligations to ensure equal treatment of all students.”
The school board summit was co-hosted by the Noah Webster Education Foundation, a Virginia-based Christian education nonprofit, and sponsored by the Virginia-based Leadership Institute.
Both the Noah Webster Foundation and the Leadership Institute are coalition partners in Project 2025, a 900-page blueprint created by former Trump administration leaders to reform nearly every aspect of American life.
Project 2025 also calls for major reforms to public education, including cuts to low-income federal programs like Head Start and abolishing the Department of Education entirely.
Kochanski said the sessions offered at the summit and connections with national groups associated with Project 2025 prompted her to reach out to the district about using taxpayer money.
Brewer said WILL’s work is not related to Project 2025, but the company provides resources to school boards, such as model policies, school board summits and FAQ documents, because school board members have requested information.
“We’re excited to work with a variety of groups and provide resources to school boards,” Brewer said, “and this isn’t unique to Wisconsin. School districts across the country, and school boards in particular, lack resources with sufficient ideological diversity and often feel like their needs aren’t being met.”
Brewer said about 100 school committee members and administrators attended the summit, though it was unclear how many districts were represented.
WPR confirmed that school committee members from Waukesha, Menomonee Falls, Oconomowoc and Muskego attended the summit, which cost each member $150.
David Armiak, research director for the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group, said it’s impossible to compare state school board associations to WILL.
He said the association is a statewide, nonpartisan organization and that “WILL is an ideological group that is funded by the right wing and promotes right wing policies.”
“They’re being paid to do this by people who are not educated in education or education policy, and they’re using it as a weapon for Republican gain,” Armiac said.
Armiac wrote about the summit, noting that while the source of funding for WILL’s education policy restoration project was not disclosed, the likely backer was the Bradley Foundation.
Since WILL was founded in 2011, the Bradley Foundation alone has provided $9.4 million, or 36 percent of the institute’s total funding, Armiac said.
Bradley called WILL the “MVP” of the Wisconsin network, and Armiac said it would be a logical partner for right-wing donors to turn to in order to influence Wisconsin school boards in 2024.
Waukesha board members say state association doesn’t represent values
At the Waukesha Board of Education meeting on July 11, members had a lengthy discussion about the district’s affiliation to the Wisconsin School Boards Association, ultimately voting 8-1 to withdraw.
Board members said the organization no longer represents the school board’s evolving values.
Some of these “values” relate to controversial bills debated during the last session.
The Wisconsin School Boards Association opposed a bill that would have barred transgender women and girls from sports. The association also opposed bills on “curriculum transparency,” competitive bidding for school districts, and allowing paraprofessionals to teach.
Education Committee member Eric Brooks said the association supports easy-to-support bills like Act 20, the statewide reading initiative.
“When it comes to issues that a lot of people care deeply about and that are a little controversial in nature, it often seems to go against what a lot of people in the region value,” said Brooks, who works for Republican state Sen. Dewey Stroebel.
In 2021, frustrations over the pandemic led to big gains for Republican candidates on school boards in Wisconsin, particularly in suburban Milwaukee.
These committees have since addressed high-profile controversies, including the removal of books from school libraries and LGBTQ+ issues.
At the Lincoln-Reagan Dinner in March 2024, Waukesha School Board Chairman Piacek called himself an “OG WISRED candidate.” WISRED is the arm of the Waukesha County Republican Party focused on electing school board candidates.
“WISRED school board members have been elected a total of more than 120 times in the past three elections,” Piacek said at the dinner, “In 2021, our goal was to move the majority by one or two seats, but three years later, we hold the chairperson position in every school district except one.”
Incumbents Piacek and Zenobia and newcomer Brooks were elected to the Board of Education in April, all with the endorsement of WISRED.
The Waukesha School District’s board of directors decided it was too expensive to stay in the state association. Waukesha schools had to pay $15,371 in membership fees, plus about $5,000 in additional training fees, up from about $14,600 last year, according to the district.
Waukesha School Board Commissioner David Wadd said the school board has changed over the past three years and that the Wisconsin School Boards Association’s actions are at odds with the desires of Waukesha residents.
“I attended the summer meeting a year ago and it was clear that the school board’s thinking was changing rapidly and (the association) was taking this position anyway,” Wadd said. “If they don’t realize they’re alienating a significant percentage of their members, then they don’t have a clear understanding of who their members are.”
Dan Rothmiller, executive director of the Wisconsin School Boards Association, said every public school board in Wisconsin has been a member of the association for 15 of the past 16 years.
“I strongly believe that having all districts as members ensures that we can build bridges between all school boards in terms of education, social and advocacy,” Rossmiller said.
The association is a nonpartisan organization that does not endorse or provide funding to any political candidates.
Rossmiller said he was disappointed that Waukesha did not renew its membership but appreciated its position and that of all Wisconsin school boards.
“We hope they will return in the future to help shape our direction as we support, promote and advocate for public education, the school board and our students,” Rossmiller said. “In the meantime, we look forward to continuing the dialogue, engaging with Waukesha and responding to their concerns while continuing to serve all of our members.”
Listen to the WPR report
The news that a conservative law firm in Wisconsin is strengthening its ties with local school boards was originally reported by Wisconsin Public Radio.
