Parental Involvement 

The COVID-19 pandemic and the social unrest in our nation have brought to the forefront the debate over parental involvement in education.

I wanted to weigh in on the topic and share my thoughts with all of you.

If you are interested in reading my opinions, please click on this link.

ESSER Funds Transparency

I recently joined state Rep. Jeremy Thiesfeldt in writing a letter to Gov. Evers asking for transparency on how our federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds are being spent in our schools.

We should all be concerned about the learning loss our children experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic when many schools stopped doing in-person instruction and instead moved to virtual options.

We need assurances that our ESSER funds are being spent in a manner that ensures our students do not fall further behind. We are encouraging the Evers administration to be transparent with this funding so that all our children can receive a high-quality education.

To read the letter, please click here.

On a related note, Congressman Mike Gallagher has introduced federal legislation that requires school districts to submit to their states an annual report on their ESSER expenditures.

Save the Bay

I had the pleasure earlier this week of participating in U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher's latest Save the Bay event in Kewaunee County.

Save the Bay is a northeast Wisconsin collaborative initiative in which agriculture, academia, industry, government and nonprofit leaders identify, share and promote conservation practices to reduce phosphorus, nitrogen and sediment flowing into the waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan.

For my portion, I spoke about the actions we've taken on conservation at the state level. Chief among them is the nitrate bill I authored, which we hope will become law in the next few weeks. There were also several items in the state budget, including:

• Targeted Runoff Management Program: Reauthorized $6.5 million in funding for rural nonpoint source abatement grants, including cost-sharing for on-farm upgrades to meet compliance standards.
• Producer-Led Watershed Protection Grants: Increased funding from $750,000 per year to $1 million.
• County Conservation Staff Grants: Provided an additional $2 million per year for county conservation staffing. In total, county conservation staff will receive about $11 million per year over the biennium.
• Soil and Water Resource Management Program: Reauthorized $7 million for cost-sharing grants for the installation of best management practices on farms.

By working together with our farming community and our state's conservation groups, I am confident that we can continue our progress toward ensuring clean water for all our residents.