By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
With all results still unofficial Tuesday night, the Burlington Area School District School Board race had incumbent Phil Ketterhagen narrowly earning re-election.
Newcomer Kevin Bird tallied the most votes with 1,942, while Ketterhagen (1,851) appeared to have edged out Barry Schmaling (1,836).
Jim Berndt rounded out the official candidates with 649, but the late write-in campaign of incumbent Roger Koldeway may have impacted the race – even if Koldeway wasn’t re-elected.
Koldeway initially said he would not seek re-election, but did not file non-candidacy papers. Three weeks ago, he filed papers to run as a registered write-in candidate, saying enough people told him they would vote for him that he wanted the votes to count.
With results from both Walworth and Racine Counties combined, a write-in candidate – presumably Koldeway – finished with 596 votes.
BASD Superintendent Peter Smet said Wednesday morning the district was waiting for all of the outstanding absentee ballots to be counted. Deadline for those votes will be Friday afternoon.
He added that canvassing of the votes would take place Monday, and from there, it was his understanding that a candidate would have to request a recount.
Schmaling, meanwhile, thought it might happen automatically.
“I have not made any decisions, but at a 15-vote difference, I think Racine County will do that automatically anyway,” Schmaling said. “They tend to under 100 votes.
“We’ll see how things go at this stage,” he added.
It was a divided race. Bird and Schmaling ruled the City of Burlington and kept it close in the Town of Burlington, but Ketterhagen had a clear advantage in the towns of Rochester and Dover – as well as in Walworth County.
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Either way the school district loses by those who were elected or re-elected to the board. Not a lick of common sense between any of them. Bird has an agenda in regards to only sports and the other two are just out of touch with reality.
Agree 100%. Enrollment will continue to decline with another sports/airhead/glory days wannabee giving blank stares and one line answers. Most professional parents want academic issues at the forefront for their elementary kids and will not see Burlington as a destination where the anachronistic high school jock mentality exists.
I highly doubt you know Kevin Bird, and its a shame you claim to.
I know he doesn’t have any agenda.
But here is a reality for you, athletes consistently score higher on standardized tests than non-athletes. It probably wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to have higher test scores in Burlington.
Then if nobody studied and just played sports they’d all have better scores, right? Control group means what? smh Your reality is low information.
Mr. Ketterhagen has already proven to have no common sense, and is clearly pushing his “WeVote” agenda to kill the schools.
Mr. Bird has been not the school board before, so I’m unsure how you know what his agenda is. Please wait to pass judgement until Mr. Bird is actually on the board.
Just to let you know there was an election last week in which people passed judgement on the candidates.
perhaps you should have ran for school board yourself instead of complaining about others who give of their time to work for the good of the community.
I’m really sad about this. Barry Schmaling is a fine person, dedicated to his family and to education. He is a conservative no doubt, but someone who knows that good education is essential to the future of our community. It just makes me so sad that Burlington voters would elevate someone like Phil Ketterhagen to a position of such importance when he has shown that he has nothing to say about education and only cares that as little money as possible be directed towards the future of our children. Ketterhagen made national news when he referred to educators as cattle who needed to be hit over the head with a two by four. Such statements make him unacceptable as a leader in the educational community. I’m not sure that I would recommend anyone to raise a family in a community that votes for selfishness over integrity in education. I’m sure that potentially well-off property tax payers have seen these results and will look elsewhere to raise their children. What a tragic loss for our community. I can only hope that Barry will run again.
In looking at all the results, I have a feeling that the little (i) next to Ketterhagen’s name had more to do with him getting votes than his performance on the school board. Unfortunately there are uninformed voters out there that don’t know who to vote for, so they give their votes to the incumbents.
When someone runs for office, of course, they have an agenda. To call Bird a glory days wannabe leads me to believe you know nothing about Kevin nor the athletic scholars that he supports. Kevin is well connected in the wrestling community nationally and he’s seen how other schools have improved their facilities without bankrupting tax payers. He also volunteers the entire weekend of Chocolatefest. I encourage you to get to know our athletes– the majority of them also excel in the classroom. We need to attract more students like that to our school and I am hopeful that Bird as a board member can do that.
You do realize you just described someone that is what you deny to a T. Do any but a few parents care about wrestling or chocolate? My God. Can we get some better candidates next time. We want our kids to excel in music and the arts math and science – things that might lead to curing dementia and the like, not the ape mentality of banging muscle heads that causes these things. Many kids who don’t participate in these things are better “athletes” nutritionally and cardio wise. If you want money to go watch your kids mangle each other, use your own!!!!
No more money for dumb sports coaches for the stone age!!! Get real academic teachers for the future!!
Wow Joan,
That is probably one of the most ignorant comments I’ve read on here in a while. A couple of things…
#1 Why are you judging Kevin Bird before he even is on the school board?
#2 Why are you insulting the wrestling team? I suggest you check the team GPA or see all the community service they do before you call them apes.
#3 Just because you may not see the value in athletics does not mean that others share your opinion. Clearly athletics plays a large part in many adolescence’s lives, and creates great character traits that last a lifetime.
I agree with Joan, although I think the problem isn’t with the school but the parents. More time studying less sports and twitter. The person (parent?) above used the common uneducated technique of putting words in her mouth to feint offense. Typical in our short circuited social media culture, Again, it’s the parents – the school doesn’t matter much except the good parents have to put up and pay for the bad ones. These guys mostly run for these things to make business connections and talk sports. We need more women on the school board – it’s a stereotype that fits.
I’m glad you posted Yale. I was in need of a good laugh. You ridicule social media in one post, then use “smh” in another post. Seems contradictory to me. You talk about stereotypes, then make the comment that “these guys mostly run for these things to make business connections and talk sports”. Wow, there is an unfounded stereotype if I’ve ever heard one. You also claim to have some sort of information that proves that athletes don’t do better in schools than the average student, yet don’t actually provide that information. After doing a simple google search, I’ve selected the first link that comes up regarding athletics and grades. Here is the link, read up.
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/high-school-athletes-gpa-vs-average-high-school-students-gpa-3702.html
smh – from email/texting (presocial media) modern version of shorthand to expound more at length due to limited space medium – various uses combat shortened dialogue – so just the opposite of your claim – thx for playing.
Yes I addressed stereotypes, that this one was accurate. Putting words in mouth again inferring previous criticism that does not exist- which was addressed in the post – naughty naughty no reading skills!
Link provides no methodology nor does it address the control group problem. Involved less likely to have socioeconomic concerns, family concerns, etc. more able to dedicate time to such frivolity.
The logic you are grasping for is that this involvement in a group will spill over into more discipline in the classroom and other avenues, but you do not compare with similar activities or a more rigorous study schedule to compare those benefits.
Glad to help you laugh at your correlation/causation problems. Maybe the world will make more sense to you now -enjoy!!!
Dear Yale,
You are clearly the smartest person who has ever walked the face of the Earth, and we should all bow down at your greatness. Keep posting, I just hope to glean some of your limitless knowledge from your postings.
Sincerely,
Sarah
(the queen of sarcasm)
You are obviously the one with an agenda. Kevin will bring common sense and fiscal responsibility to the board. A clear win for the district.
I voted. I hope those who are already complaining about the outcome voted as well.
Seems a bit early to start beating up board members before they are even sworn in. Give them a chance. See how they do. If you don’t like their decisions there will be plenty of time to criticize later.
Then why even vote? Weren’t you passing judgement less than a week ago? These comments are a hoot.
These negative comments make me sad. How can one pass judgement on a newly elected member when they have no idea what they will accomplish? Please, please know that this is a volunteer, thankless job and there is not a reason one would embark on this stressful journey other than to make our school district a better one for our children. PLEASE, if you think you could do a better job, run for school board next time.
Wrestling’s benefits aren’t confined to just sports, notes Steve Costanzo, head coach of the 2015 NCAA Division II national champion St. Cloud State wrestling team. He points out that one of his wrestlers this year was a volunteer firefighter with a rural St. Cloud fire department. The nature of wrestling, he explains, provides an outstanding opportunity for young athletes to develop a sense of responsibility, self-esteem and accountability while learning the relationship between effort and achievement.
“The commitment to the sport eventually correlates to all other aspects of a wrestler’s life, such as academics, athletics, jobs and relationships,” Costanzo says. The building blocks to do that are there through the sport of wrestling.
Individually, Harvard and ODU had one wrestler apiece on the All-Academic team, as Tristan Warner garnered yet another academic achievement for possessing an incredible 3.97 GPA, while double majoring in Communications and Criminal Justice, In March, Warner was named the sole recipient of the prestigious Elite 89 Award for the 2014 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship. The Elite 89 is presented to the student-athlete with the highest cumulative grade-point average participating at the finals site for each of the NCAA’s championships. Warner is Old Dominion University’s first ever recipient of the Elite 89 Award.
2013-14 NWCA Division I All-Academic Top 30 Teams (GPA)
1. Harvard 3.3657
2. Old Dominion 3.32
3. Gardner-Webb 3.3167
4. Appalachian State 3.31
4. Brown 3.31
6. Duke 3.304
7. Bucknell 3.3
8. Stanford 3.235
9. American 3.21
10. Penn State 3.1831
11. Oklahoma 3.16
11. Ohio 3.16
13. Kent State 3.159
14. Drexel 3.142
15. Indiana 3.114
16. Virginia Tech 3.103
17. Lehigh 3.1
17. Cornell 3.1
17. Princeton 3.1
20. Oklahoma State 3.0978
21. Utah Valley 3.097
22. Minnesota 3.094
23. Northwestern 3.08
24. Ohio State 3.066
24. Michigan 3.066
26. North Dakota State 3.061
27. The Citadel 3.058
28. Nebraska 3.0576
29. George Mason 3.052
30. Eastern Michigan 3.046
no one cares… this is about Education and Educating our kids! Wrestling stats mean nothing… this election was NOT about “wrestling stats”
Being nasty on the comments section behind the veil of a made up name is a pretty weak approach to getting involved in the local community. We should all be pretty excited that we just elected someone to the school board who has the financial background that Kevin Bird has. This comments section is exactly why more good people don’t run for local positions. Take a step back before commenting so negatively and recognize you are not doing our community any favors.
Let me tell you a few things I know about Kevin Bird, who has been described above as an ape looking, arm dragging, muscle head, who is only moments away from being diagnosed with dementia.
Not all of what I have to say provides any merit on his qualifications for school board, but maybe it will give you some insight into Kevin as a person. Kevin is a Christian who has been married for 22+ years and has 3 boys all educated through BASD. You won’t find a friendlier person on the planet. You also won’t find a harder worker. Kevin tries to cram 26 hours of work into every 24 hour day and much of that time is spent volunteering; somedays more time is spent volunteering than on the paying job. Kevin graduated from UW Parkside with a BS in Business Administration with emphasis in finance and accounting. He started his career in banking and then moved to work for Wanasek Corporation currently as it’s Chief Financial Officer. While holding that challenging position he has found the time to a few other things. This is just a short list of some of the things he’s done in addition to his regular job:
Board Member and Treasurer – Burlington Education Endowment
Board Member – Burlington Chamber of Commerce
Past President – Burlington Rotary Club
Past Member – Burlington Planning Commission
Member – City of Burlington Strategic Planning
Member – City of Burlington Finance Committee
Founding Board Member – Fox River State Bank
Board Member and Treasurer – Burlington Community Hospital Foundation
Founding Member – Burlington Wrestling Club
Foster Parent
Wrestling Coach – Catholic Central 1996-2000
Board Member and Treasurer – Wisconsin Wrestling Association
Youth Soccer Coach – Burlington Soccer
I could go on, and on, but I think you get the point. We are not talking about a know nothing, do nothing, ape like neanderthal here. I recommend you get to know Kevin, walk in his shoes for awhile, and give him a chance before condemning his selection on the School Board! If you’ve ever heard the phrase you can get blood from a turnip, don’t believe it, Kevin can, has, and will again!
Whether you like it or not athletics are a part of the educational experience. I believe for the most part they are a positive part of the experience, much like music, theater and other extracurricular activities. Kids need to maintain a minumum gpa, and evidence suggests most athletes far exceed those requirements. Besides the dedication, sacrifice, perseverence in the face of challenges the kids also learn how to balance school and sports. An important lesson in life I think.
As we approach graduation for the class of 2015 I challenge you to look at activities that the young men and women at the top of the class have been involved in. I think you’ll find they were able to study and compete in sports or other extracurricular activities.They are able to do both at a high level. It is not a choice between one or the other.
As for Kevin Bird. Does he have an agenda? Yes. His agenda is to work with the school board and community to make Burlington Schools and the Burlington community a more attractive choice for parents to send their children to school. While Kevin has a passion for wrestling that is pretty inspiring his appreciation for a quality education matches that passion. I’d say he more than many understands that connection between athletics and academics. He brings a lot of experience and a love for this community.
As a recent graduate from the Burlington Area School District I’ve experienced firsthand the shortcomings of our local education system. Yet I pushed through and now attend a 4-year university in the UW system where we are dealing with our own problems. The real fact of the matter is, you will get exactly what you want out of Burlington Area School District or any school district for what it’s worth, as long as you are willing to put forth effort. As a child in youth sports I learned the value of hard work and sacrifice and it translated into academic success. However, many of my peers found the same success without ever picking up a ball. They learned the same concepts through different mediums, perhaps music or art. Nonetheless, the common denominator we all had was a strong role model that led us down the right path. I was lucky enough to have loving parents and a coach with such a burning passion in Kevin Bird. I think kids today need the opportunity to have people like that in their lives, but unfortunately that is not always possible. But I believe that is what contributes to kids struggling academically, not the elected officials who do all they can to do what is best for the community while receiving endless criticism. I recognize that the system isn’t perfect and that there is a need for change, and I don’t know anyone better to lead the way than Kevin Bird.