The Tosa Ledger

Volume XVIII – December 8, 2025

A clear roundup of actions, alerts, and stories that matter. Forward freely. Act boldly.

We know. We haven’t done one of these in a while but in this District "when it rains, it pours."

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This week

Teacher Voice & Email Monitoring
A current classroom teacher reports post-contract “walkthroughs” that felt like intimidation, plus teachers being called into principal meetings over emails sent to the elected Board—just as the Board is tightening its email policy in ways that route responses back through the Superintendent.
The CFO’s “Referendum Script” Slip
An internal “Referendum Script” from the district’s CFO spells out how staff should describe the 2024 referenda to taxpayers: cover the shortfall, increase educator pay, buy curriculum. The budget record since then looks very different. (If anyone is wondering whether the district is gearing up for another referendum—or worried about reactions to looming property-tax bills—this script is your answer.)
East Security & Trust
Eight people buzzed into East as a group, a planned confrontation in the hallways, an injured SRO, and a widening gap between what police reports describe and what families feel they’re being told.

1. TEACHER VOICE, “WALKTHROUGHS,” AND A NEW EMAIL POLICY

A current district teacher with direct knowledge of the contract negotiations (we’ll call this person Teacher A) contacted the 2030 Task Force and agreed to have their account used anonymously. They explicitly asked that their name and building not be shared because they do not want to “lose [their] job for sharing.”

What Teacher A reports:

Post-contract visits that felt like intimidation
- The superintendent allegedly made a point of visiting classrooms led by educators involved in the bargaining process, including at least one teacher who shared their experience with us.
- In at least one room, the superintendent reportedly sat beside a student and stared the teacher down for several minutes before asking whether the class content was “useful.”
- Teacher A did not experience this as a normal instructional walkthrough, but interpreted it as an attempt to “show his weight with intimidation.”
Teachers called into offices over Board emails
- According to Teacher A, teachers who emailed the Board about the proposed contract and pay increases were called into principal offices to “discuss” what they had written.
- In their words: “I find it disconcerting that board emails would result in principal conversations.”
Retention-bump confusion and possible payroll/HR failure
- Teacher A says multiple staff expecting “retention bumps” at 3, 7, or 15 years did not receive them.
- The explanation they report hearing: those teachers had already received the bumps the prior year “by mistake.”
- For Teacher A, that means either staff are being misled, or a significant payroll/HR error involving many employees went as undetected.

Teacher A is glad that overall increases were eventually resolved, but worries “how things could escalate in the future due to district anger.”

The email policy that sits over all of this

For today’s board meeting, December 8, 2025, the Board has moved a revised policy, “USE OF ELECTRONIC MAIL” (po0167.5), to the consent agenda. Among other limits, it:

Narrows what Board members may use email for (scheduling, agenda items, logistics, etc.).
Requires that when “operational and/or managerial issues are being addressed,” Board members copy the Superintendent and, as necessary, an administrator on their reply to a member of the public or district staff.

In practice, when staff raise operational or managerial concerns with the Board and get a response, that exchange is structurally routed back through central administration.

Combined with Teacher A’s account—post-contract visits to bargaining-team classrooms and teachers called in over Board emails—this may function less like neutral “coordination” and more like a monitoring system, at least as it is experienced by some staff.

We are not making legal findings. But in any district where:

Employees email their elected Board about pay, budgets, and leadership,
Those emails lead to meetings with supervisors, and
Policy formally loops Board–staff communication back through the Superintendent,

many staff may reasonably feel that speaking candidly is risky. That is a governance problem all by itself.

Use of Electronic Mail.pdf

READ THE EMAIL POLICY

2. THE CFO’S “REFERENDUM SCRIPT” VS. BUDGET REALITY

On December 5, 2025, Chief Financial & Operations Officer Scot Ecker sent an email titled “Referendum Script” to two individuals using district email addresses and to a community member. The community member believes they were included by accident.

The script provides was standardized language for:

A voicemail greeting staff can use when residents call about the 2024 referenda;
An email auto-reply for anyone who writes with referendum or tax questions.

The script tells staff to say that in November 2024 voters approved:

A $60 million Capital/Facilities Referendum to address deferred maintenance, facility projects, and ADA needs;
A Non-Recurring Operational Referendum of $16.1 million per year for four years (2025–26 through 2028–29).

And that the operational referendum was needed to:

Cover projected operational shortfalls,
Increase educator compensation, and
Purchase curricular materials,

because “state statute does not provide full funding” for the district.

That is the official story the district wants staff to give homeowners who are now seeing their 2024 “yes” vote show up on property-tax bills—and, very likely, groundwork for whatever comes next on the referendum front.

Referendum Script.docx

READ THE SCRIPT

What has happened since voters said yes

Since those referenda passed, the district has:

Admitted to an overspend around $8.2 million;
Experienced an $11 million structural deficit this year, despite having sold the operational referendum as the fix for “projected shortfalls”; Projects this growing to $23 million per year by 2030.
Uncovered a $4.2 million health-plan error effectively pushed onto staff via higher premiums, undermining take-home pay;
Floated a contract that would have left many educators behind once health costs were counted—revised only after serious pushback;
Seen central-office budgets nearly double in the past year, even as school-level morale and stability erode.

Side-by-side:

Script: We needed the referendum to stabilize finances, increase educator pay, and fund curriculum.
Record so far: Overspending, a structural deficit, a multimillion-dollar benefits error shifted onto staff, and rapid central-office growth.

The community has a strong track record of supporting schools. The question now is whether the district will be just as strong on its accounting before it talks about another $350M - $457M facilities ask. Residents are entitled to clear answers on:

How much of the 2024 operational referendum has actually gone to net increases in educator compensation;
How a measure sold as covering “projected shortfalls” led so quickly to an $11M structural deficit;
Why central-office spending has grown so much faster than trust in the classroom.

3. EAST SECURITY INCIDENT – TWO THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

First, the police report: on November 19, 2025, during the school day, a group of students left class, gathered at East’s main entrance, and used the buzzer system to admit a group of outsiders into the building. That group—including at least one adult—came to confront other students inside the school. A serious hallway incident followed: shouting, threats, and a physical struggle that required multiple officers to resolve. The School Resource Officer was injured, juveniles were cited for School Disorderly Conduct, and adults/older teens were referred to the District Attorney for Disorderly Conduct, Resisting/Obstructing, and Trespass.

Second, the pattern: staff and community members see a gap between this level of seriousness and what they feel was conveyed in official emails; they doubt there will be strong, consistent consequences for students who helped bring outsiders into the building; and they see this incident as part of a broader drift toward soft discipline and opaque communication. One incident does not define a school—but when eight people can be buzzed in during class to join a fight, families across Wauwatosa are right to ask whether the systems that are supposed to keep kids safe are actually working.

For further information see Eye on Wauwatosa: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18DEHK35VQ/

Eye on Wauwatosa

4. YOUR VOICE IS NEEDED

Show up. Write. Speak out.

Email the Board and Superintendent about any of the issues above — teacher retaliation, the email policy, referendum accountability, or East security — in your own words.
Attend Board meetings - like tonight’s board meeting - and use public comment to ask clear, specific questions.
Share this Ledger with neighbors, staff, and families who may not have seen the police report, the email policy, or the referendum script.

We also deserve safety, accountability, and leadership that listens and responds to staff and community concerns.

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