Wisconsin Radio Network

Wisconsin News and Sports

You are here: Home / Archives for Education

Beloit College will test students weekly for COVID-19

By

Beloit College is testing all of its students for COVID-19 weekly.  The College has partnered with Abbott Laboratories in Chicago to provide weekly on-campus COVID-19 testing for all of its roughly 1400 undergraduates.

The College will cover the costs of inner nasal swab tests which produce results in 20 minutes or less. According to a press release the College will also hire up to eight certified nursing assistants or emergency medicine technicians to staff the new testing center.

Since resuming in-person classes, Beloit’s policy has included cloth face coverings, physical distancing, frequent hand-washing and completing daily wellness checks on an app.

Governor Evers won’t be issuing a school closure order, still deciding on mask order extension

By

Governor Tony Evers won’t be issuing any general school closure orders, after a swathe of districts have had cases of COVID-19.

Evers says that local school districts continue to be the best source for their own decisions on whether or not to reopen. 

“They are the experts on what resources they have locally. The ability to open safely is one that is a local decision.”

Evers says sending out a blanket order at this point would be confusing. 

“If you’re in a very small District where you have already small class sizes it’s much easier to provide social distancing for students than it is than in school districts where you don’t have that ability.”

The state has been providing guidelines to districts since before the start of the school year. 

The governor is also still mulling whether or not he’ll be extending the statewide masking order. Evers says that repeated legal action has hampered the state’s ability to combat COVID-19.

“We’re severely limited as to what we can do and now we’re seeing that even counties are severely limited to what they can do.”

He says he’d like to work with the Republican controlled legislature on the issue.

“The legislature seems reluctant to accomplish anything as it relates to restrictions so to put it bluntly we’re going to continue to do what we can do and masking is one of them and we have that until the 28th of this month.”

Evers first formal efforts to control COVID-19 through a public health order were struck down by the State Supreme Court, which ordered the Governor and the Legislature to work out a plan to handle the virus.

Republicans have not put forward their own plans on the issue.

UW- Madison goes to online classes and quarantines two residence halls

By

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is canceling in-person classes and putting two residence halls under quarantine.

While making the announcement on Wednesday, Chancellor Rebecca Blake pointed to a COVID-19 positive test rate that topped 20 percent the last two days.

All in-person classes are canceled through Saturday, with remote learning getting underway Monday, then lasting two weeks. All students in Sellery and Witte Residence Halls have been ordered to quarantine in place.

Despite a request from Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, Blank decided the university has enough quarantine space to handle sick students without sending them home.

On Thursday, Public Health Madison and Dane County reported reported 456 new COVID-19 cases over the previous 24 hours. The previous largest increase, reported this past Sunday, was 195.

And, in an indication that the increase in cases is not solely occurring on the UW System’s largest campus, about half of all people who’ve tested positive for the coronavirus this month in Eau Claire County are tied to U-W Eau Claire, where in-person classes also began last week.

The Eau Claire City-County Health Department reported that 100 of the nearly 200 of the new coronavirus positives are either students or faculty, according to the Leader-Telegram.

Blank orders restricted activities for UW-Madison undergraduates amid coronavirus surge

By

Chancellor Rebecca Blank

There’s a new coronavirus order, for students at UW-Madison. With more than 32,000 undergraduates on the Madison campus this semester, and new cases increasing for five straight days, Chancellor Rebecca Blank on Monday ordered all undergraduates to restrict movements and limit in-person interactions to essential activities for the next two weeks.

The restrictions, which went into effect at 5:00 PM Monday, were detailed in a letter from the chancellor.

Blank also raised the possibility of closing down campus if UW is unable to “flatten the curve” of new infections.

On-campus test results for Sunday alone showed 148 students and one employee tested positive, with 111 of those positive cases among students living off-campus, according to information on the university’s Smart Restart Dashboard.

UW Elections Research Center prepares for presidential polling

By

As the nation approaches Election Day, the question remains: can we trust the polls?

UW Madison Elections Research Center director Barry Burden says that polling, while flawed, still remains the best tool to keep tally on people’s potential votes. 

“Letters to the editor or interviewing people at rallies, or focus groups are all really helpful, but they don’t give you a picture of the full electorate where each person’s opinion is weighed equally and where it’s designed to represent the full set of voters or the full set of residents of the state.”

Burden says pollsters will need to take a serious look at how people respond differently to polling over the phone rather than online polling. 

“Now that could just be because phone surveys reach a different sort of person than an internet survey does, after all it’s a very different methodology. But it might also be that people online are are more willing to express unpopular views.”

While the polls accurately predicted the final popular vote of the 2016 election, they failed to catch the surge of rural voting that pushed President Trump over the edge in the Electoral College.

The Elections Center will be doing more polling of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, all of which flipped from Democrat to Republican in the 2016 elections, after narrow victories by President Trump.

Wisconsin Lutheran College rescinds Pence commencement invite

By

Vice President Mike Pence will not speak to the Class of 2020 at Wisconsin Lutheran College after all.

College leadership uninvited Pence from Saturday’s graduation after students and alumni wrote a letter complaining that having Pence speak would politicize the ceremony, and didn’t embrace love.

Pence had planned to speak about faith and navigating the world in 2020. A local Lutheran pastor will speak instead.

Wisconsin Lutheran College is a private liberal arts college located on the border of Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, affiliated with the WELS, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. t has an enrollment of about 1,200 students

Local elected officials raise concerns about UW’s reopening plans

By

Some Madison-area elected officials have raised eleventh hour concerns, with the University of Wisconsin’s reopening plan.

Move-in to campus dorms begins Tuesday. The State Journal reports that a letter sent Monday to Chancellor Rebecca Blank and Public Health Madison and Dane County Director Janel Heinrich raises concerns of an “inevitable outbreak” among students, and requests that nearly all classes move online, that most residence halls remain empty, and for public disclosure of what metrics would lead the university to cancel in-person instruction.

Signing the letter; more than a third of the 37 Dane County supervisors, nearly half of the 20 member Madison Common Council, and three of the Madison School Board’s seven members

UW System Regents request 3.5% increase in spending

By

Tommy Thompson

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is including a request for an increase in spending in the budget proposal it will forward to the governor.

UW System President Tommy Thompson told the Board he is seeking a 3.5 percent operating budget increase for the biennial budget, an investment that would renew the Wisconsin Idea through 10 key initiatives. He noted the proposed budget increase of 3.5 percent would be a $95.7 million increase in state support over the biennial budget.

UW System is also seeking $1.2 billion in capital budget authority to renovate 2.9 million of the System’s more than 67 million square feet, or 4 percent.

The UW System’s 2021-23 operating and capital budget requests will now be forwarded to the state Department of Administration for consideration by Governor Tony Evers.

Regents gave their approval to the spending plan Thursday. It includes a tuition freeze that has already lasted seven years. It also includes a new program to cover the tuition for lower-income families and a request to be allowed to borrow up to a billion dollars to pay for losses sustained during the coronavirus pandemic.

Evers discusses school opening and CARES act funding in Thursday press conference

By

Following complaints from Republicans about how he was spending federal coronavirus aid money, on Thursday Governor Tony Evers unveiled a new platform for people to see exactly where that money is going. 

“This website will allow Wisconsinites to see for themselves how our investments totaling 1.73 billion dollars so far, are helping your neighbors and communities.”)

Evers says the state has already made great investments with CARES funding. 

“In just a few short months we’ve been able to put more than 10 million pieces of personal protective equipment and more than 1 million testing and lab supplies into the hands of local communities and our tribal partners. We’ve also invested in more than 12,000 small businesses and providing additional support in nearly 12,000 Wisconsin farms, and folks, the impact of our investments keep growing.”

Evers still has about 300 million dollars in CARES funding remaining, and it’s a rare opportunity for the governor to spread out spending without involving state Republicans.

He says he’ll be closely monitoring if hospitals and other agencies need that funding over the next few months.

Meanwhile, Governor Evers says he doesn’t see a need to step in with a new statewide order on whether or not to close or open schools this fall. He says he’s been in contact with districts and administrations and school boards and that local decisions are being made.

“There are several rural school districts that are reopening in person, but they’re also, to their credit, offering a remote option to parents who feel uncomfortable doing that.”

Evers says what reopening looks like will be wildly different for small districts as opposed to large districts, and that needs for each can be weighed by schools boards.

“At this point in time, there seems to be good discussion going on and I believe good decisions are being made.”

Several Republicans have accused the Governor of secretly planning to close schools for weeks. 

Blank says UW-Madison faces ‘financial crisis’

By

Chancellor Rebecca Blank

The chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison says the state’s flagship campus is “in a real financial crisis.”

Chancellor Rebecca Blank blames the challenging situation the school faces as the fall semester approaches on the coronavirus pandemic.

Blank told the Rotary Club of Madison that how bad things will get depends on factors like students who are enrolled for the fall semester actually showing up, how deep state budget cuts are, and whether lawmakers give the university the authority it needs to borrow money.

Interim UW System President Tommy Thompson said he will make a personal appeal to Governor Tony Evers and members of the legislature to spare the UW in the next round of budget cuts. The UW already announced system-wide administrative cuts earlier this month.