IMPACT REPORT
Sentinel investigation, one of Wisconsin’s most active anti-abortion groups was forced at the eleventh hour to withdraw its widely publicized promise of continuing education credits for a lecture series targeting doctors and other health care providers.
The Journal Sentinel investigated how Wisconsin Right to Life was able to charge doctors and other medical professionals $249 to attend the lecture series for education credit when it included a prominent anti-abortion activist and a presentation on socalled “abortion pill reversal,” which the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says is not based on science.
The Journal Sentinel posed questions to the national accreditor about how the event could qualify for the credits, which are required by the state licensing boards, including Wisconsin’s medical examining board. Continuing medical education courses must make sure the content “is fair and balanced and that any clinical content presented supports safe, effective patient care.” The national accreditor intervened, forcing the Christian Medical and Dental Associations — the accredited professional organization through which Wisconsin Right to Life got approval for the credits — to rescind its approval for the credits.
Botched school district investigation allowed a Green Bay teacher who sexually abused students to keep teaching
GREEN BAY — The Press-Gazette found that, instead of conducting a thorough inquiry into a 2017 sexual abuse allegation against a second-grade teacher, the Green Bay School District botched an investigation and kept the teacher in the classroom — until another girl came forward four years later saying he abused her too.
The Press-Gazette also found gaps in the county’s child welfare system and state reporting laws that kept the extent of the teacher’s abuse in the dark. The teacher, David Villareal, was sentenced to 50 years in July for sexually abusing four second-grade students at Baird Elementary in Green Bay between 2015 and 2016.
The investigation uncovered multiple breakdowns in the child welfare system meant to protect children: The Green Bay School District failed to properly investigate; Brown County Child Protection Services failed to notify police; and a loophole in state law meant the state educator licensing agency, the Department of Public Instruction, that had the power to conduct its own, separate investigation, never knew of the complaint.
The Press-Gazette’s reporting “feels like an important public acknowledgment of the wider breakdown in accountability,” as one reader put it. Many readers reached out to the reporter in the wake of the story to affirm our reporting and to thank us for exposing the problem.
Additionally, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is now looking into closing the loophole by requiring any child protection agency or police department to notify the state licensing agency of allegations of sexual misconduct toward a student.
Domestic violence group, gun store owner work together to prevent suicide
MILWAUKEE — After the Journal Sentinel published a story about a grassroots suicide prevention effort led by gun owners, a gun shop owner received multiple calls asking about the program. The program involves gun store owners voluntarily taking in firearms for people who are struggling with suicidal thoughts.
The gun shop owner who spearheaded the program in Wisconsin later formed a collaboration with a domestic violence group in his area to advocate for secure storage of guns in times of crisis.
Several readers — including families whose family members have died by gun suicide — wrote to thank reporter John Diedrich. Many expressed gratitude that his stories discussed suicide by firearm without passing judgment on owning guns. One reader wrote: “You have saved countless lives!”
The story was part of our Behind the Gun investigation, through the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Reporting at Marquette University.
Wisconsin Center pauses removal of literary exhibit featuring Indigenous writers after receiving complaints
MILWAUKEE — USA TODAY NETWORKWisconsin reporter Frank Vaisvilas reported in April about how award-winning Wisconsin writers and advocates for the arts were decrying the planned removal of a literary exhibit at Milwaukee’s Wisconsin Center.
The exhibit, “Portals and Writings Celebrating Wisconsin Authors,” was installed at the Milwaukee convention center, now known as the Baird Center, in 1998. It features the works of 48 Wisconsin writers through four centuries, including many prominent Indigenous artists and people of color. Their words are worked into sculptural archways and on the walls of the center.
Days after his first article, Vaisvilas reported how the planned removal of the literary exhibit had been put on hold after a group of Milwaukee aldermen urged a review of the decision.
The aldermen had urged the review after a group — led by Indigenous writers whose work was among those featured in the exhibit — had complained the decision to remove the exhibit was done without them being notified and without oversight.
Wisconsin cracks down on fraud in infant mortality program, citing investigation
MILWAUKEE — A Journal Sentinel investigation into rampant fraud in a state program meant to combat infant mortality led to a crackdown on the program and two people getting indicted amid a federal grand jury probe.
Sources told the Journal Sentinel the federal investigation was triggered by the news organization’s series about fraud in Wisconsin’s prenatal care coordination industry. The investigation is ongoing, and more criminal charges are expected.
After the publication of the investigation, state officials reviewing the program found that during the summer of 2023, the state had been billed for more than $2 million in claims, but only $20,000 of those were “legitimate.”
As a result, the state health department announced in November it was overhauling the program. The changes include conducting a comprehensive review of each claim submitted, blocking employees who previously worked for fraudulent providers from opening their own operations, and referring 20 Medicaid providers to the state Department of Justice’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit for “engaging in suspected fraudulent activity” involving false claims.
“These women and children deserve better,” said Kirsten Johnson, the head of the state Department of Health Services.
ACLU investigates book bans in Wisconsin
MILWAUKEE — For a series of stories in November 2023, the Journal Sentinel, with assistance from the Press-Gazette, combed through meeting materials and filed records requests that revealed unreported information about books that had been banned from school libraries across Wisconsin and the groups that pushed for the bans.
In December, the ACLU of Wisconsin filed records requests with six school districts to learn more about the districts’ decisions to ban books and whether they violated First Amendment rights. In an email, a spokesperson for the ACLU said the move was in response to reports in the Journal Sentinel and Wisconsin Examiner, as well as contacts from concerned residents.
Coverage helps lead to free meals being reinstated for all students in Manitowoc Public School District
MANITOWOC — The Herald Times Reporter’s coverage of Manitowoc Public School District Superintendent James Feil’s decision to end the district’s participation in the Community Eligibility Program for the 2023-2024 school year helped lead to the program being reinstated Nov. 1.
The federal program would reimburse the school district for a percentage of meals provided, as long as the school provided them free of cost to the students.
The district’s Board of Education had applied for the provision in 2022 and was approved for the 2022-23 school year and three additional school years after that. But Feil decided, on his own, to opt out the district of the program before the 2023-24 school year started and returned to a paid/reducedprice/free structure.
Feil’s decision drew fierce opposition from many in the community and led to a packed house at a school board meeting in October in which several spoke in opposition to the Feil’s decision. Many spoke about lunch trays being taken away from students who could not afford lunch and being replaced by sun-butter sandwiches.
Mathematician added to Library of Congress after feature obituary
MILWAUKEE — In the Journal Sentinel obituary for Dr. Gloria Ford Gilmer (October 2021), many who knew her called her Wisconsin’s “hidden figure.” Gilmer was a leader in the field of ethnomathematics, which looks at how math manifests in different world cultures. She also was a math teacher for years in Milwaukee Public Schools, helping generations of students realize what she called their “mathematical power.”
After the story was published, a researcher from the Library of Congress’ manuscript division reached out asking if we could connect him to Gilmer’s family. They wanted to add her papers to their collection.
In January 2023, Gilmer became the first Black woman mathematician to be added to the Manuscript Division. Library officials identified 64 boxes of Gilmer’s documents as worth preserving. The documents will show historians more about the field of ethnomathematics and Gilmer’s groundbreaking contributions.
School board hires third-party Title IX investigator, teacher resigns and principal steps down
WAUSAU — The Wausau Daily Herald learned in late April that the Wausau School District dismissed a complaint against a band teacher because his “insensitive” remarks, while causing “unease” among students, didn’t “rise to the level of discrimination and harassment.” The teacher had repeatedly leveled racist and sexist slurs against the student.
That might have been the end of it, but reporter Natalie Eilbert kept pushing the story. It became clear that the school hadn’t followed its own policies and protocols. In addition, the student — an openly gay, Hmong American senior — hadn’t been protected by the school. At one public meeting, past students appeared to show support, saying the same teacher had harassed them as well.
Eilbert’s reporting led the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction to open a case against the teacher and the Board of Education to throw out the decision and hire an independent Title IX attorney.
Ultimately, the original complaint was validated, the teacher resigned, and the principal was moved to another position. The student plans to study investigative journal
ism in college.
Elected official resigns under suspicion of wrongdoing
MILWAUKEE — A Milwaukee County supervisor abruptly returned several campaign donations after first blowing through deadlines to make required campaign finance disclosures.
As the Journal Sentinel was gathering records and reporting this and other potential problems — including an apparent reimbursement of an expensed trip to Puerto Rico — the elected official, County Supervisor Dyango Zerpa, abruptly resigned his position.
This also came after an earlier Journal Sentinel story reported that Zerpa was fired from his job as an aide to a state lawmaker for rarely showing up to work.
City council fires Sheboygan city administrator after conduct investigation
SHEBOYGAN — After the Sheboygan Press reported in October 2022 on City Administrator Todd Wolf’s response to city planning and development director Chad Pelishek repeating a racial slur in an internal meeting, the city council put Wolf on paid leave and ultimately fired him in January 2023 after a city investigation uncovered concerns about his conduct.
The Press reported Pelishek, while quoting a resident’s comment from a neighborhood meeting, had said the N-word during an internal meeting of department heads in August. The article detailed how Wolf was concerned not that a white department head had repeated the racist term, but that other staff members told people outside the meeting about the incident.
“(Pelishek) thought he was in a safe space — and obviously one person let that out to their friends group,” Wolf said. He said he was “disappointed” in a director who “let the information out.”
Wolf’s reaction to the use of the offensive word in a city meeting created concerns of its own. The article quoted Ale Guevara, a Sheboygan resident who said community members were already concerned about equity and inclusion issues in city government.
“(Pelishek’s) misstep is one thing,” Guevara told the paper. “But their (city leaders’) inability to deal with it reflects the deeper underlying issues that are happening.”
Pelishek also later resigned his position. Pelishek and Wolf also filed separate lawsuits against city leaders after leaving their posts and those lawsuits remain, at least in part, open.
University opens investigation into professor accused of misrepresenting her identity
MILWAUKEE — The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee opened an investigation into one of its tenured professors after the Journal Sentinel started asking about accusations that the professor built a career around a fictitious Indigenous identity.
Allegations were raised in 2021 through an online forum, but records obtained by the Journal Sentinel show the university privately backed Professor Margaret Noodin and didn’t investigate until the newspaper began asking questions earlier this year.
Noodin, who led the school’s Native language institute, provided no evidence or documentation of the Ojibwe ancestry she has claimed for decades, including on some research grants.
University professor resigns, new hiring policy planned
MILWAUKEE — A professor who had quietly resigned from the University of Wisconsin-Parkside after her department found she falsified grades went on to receive a $125,000 job offer from UW-Milwaukee.
She resigned that job in August, three weeks after the Journal Sentinel began requesting records on the case.
The UW System said it anticipated updating its hiring policies by the end of 2023 to minimize the chances of other UW campuses hiring employees who engage in misconduct.
Head of Wisconsin’s veterans’ affairs retired after investigations
MILWAUKEE — The head of Wisconsin’s Department of Veterans Affairs retired after an investigation revealed deep problems in two of the three veterans homes in the state.
The Journal Sentinel investigation detailed troubling problems with the Union Grove veterans’ home, finding that it ranked in the top five out of 117 state-run long-term care facilities for veterans nationwide for having the most violations and fines.
The stories also detailed two deaths at the King veterans’ home, including one of a man with multiple sclerosis who was left unsupervised and caught on fire while smoking a pipe.
Officials vowed to find a replacement who would “make sure that the people who are living in these nursing homes need to be of the utmost priority.”
Two Wisconsin cities get bigger cut from scooter rides after reporting highlights discrepancy
APPLETON — Post-Crescent reporter’s Duke Behnke’s coverage of Appleton’s negotiations with Bird scooters to raise the perride payment the city receives led the company and neighboring municipalities to notice a discrepancy: Appleton negotiated 20 cents per ride for the coming year, raising the city’s projected income from $5,800 to $11,600. Meanwhile, neighboring Neenah and Menasha were receiving only 10 cents per ride. The scooter company then increased their cut as well.
“Recently an article in The Post-Crescent noted that the city of Appleton negotiated an increase in the city payment from $0.10 per ride to $0.20 per ride,” Menasha Community Development Director Sam Schroeder said in an April 3 memorandum to the Common Council. “In light of regionalism and joint cooperation, Bird scooters provided a communication to staff that they will be increasing this payment to both the city of Neenah and Menasha to $0.20 to match what is being provided to the city of Appleton.”
The payment offsets administrative, educational and enforcement expenses associated with the program.
NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab focuses fourth season on families
For the fourth year, The Post-Crescent and the Press-Gazette served as two of the six newsrooms participating in the NEW (Northeast Wisconsin) News Lab, an initiative funded by Microsoft, the Greater Green Bay Community Foundation, Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region and the David L. and Rita E. Nelson Family Fund. The other partners were FoxValley365, The Press Times, Wisconsin Public Radio and Wisconsin Watch.
The News Lab’s mission is to “Collaborate to identify and fill information gaps to help residents explore ways to improve their communities and lives — and strengthen democracy.”
This season, the lab tackled issues facing Wisconsin families, in a series titled “Families Matter.” From March through November, seven reporters from the Post-Crescent and the Press-Gazette collaborated on 18 deepdive stories into issues facing families, including child care availability and affordability, school lunch programs, pre-K expulsion rates, foster care, dental care and more.
Beyond simply covering these topics, reporters sought solutions and opened discussions with those most impacted by any given issue, to help advance the conversation in the hopes of lessening the burden placed on Wisconsinites who are raising the next generation.
The piece of reporting that kicked off the series — an in-depth piece by Madison Lammert and Jeff Bollier on the very real consequences of the lack of affordable child care in the state — was even cited by The Century Foundation in its national report, “Child Care Cliff: 3.2 Million Children Likely to Lose Spots with End of Federal Funds” in June, months before federal child care stabilization funding ended on Sept. 30.
Public Investigator team hires more reporters
MILWAUKEE — As part of a wider reimagining of the Journal Sentinel’s watchdog team, we further invested in our Public Investigator team in mid-2023 to focus on quick-hit investigations driven by community-oriented needs and questions.
This team is focused on chasing readers’ tips, answering their questions, and pursuing accountability reporting on quality-oflife and consumer protection issues that might otherwise go ignored, with an eye toward stories from neighborhoods and communities that might otherwise be ignored.
We hired two reporters, with a third on the way. In their first few months, they’ve reported on a 98-year-old woman facing an improper eviction threat, suspicious mailers offering to buy people’s homes for cash, and a local bar owner who was stuck in his home for weeks because of a broken wheelchair lift.
The impact has come in many ways. Sometimes it’s in a kind note from a reader thanking us for putting a voice to their neighbor’s story. At other times, it has been tangible, such as the apartment complex that apologized for sending the eviction notice to the 98-year-old tenant. One reader summed it up best: “This is what outstanding journalism is all about!”
Canadian wildfire smoke spurred questions in Wisconsin. Our Connect team provided answers
MILWAUKEE — Last summer, the Journal Sentinel newsroom launched its Milwaukee Connect team, a new initiative that provides engaging journalism that helps readers navigate their lives, keep on top of local issues and trends, stay safe during public emergencies and connect with the community and world around them.
The team had an immediate impact when smoke from Canadian wildfires plagued Wisconsin for several weeks. The smoke led to some of the worst air quality in the world — and our readers had questions. They wanted to know the latest air-quality level, why smoke was coming to Wisconsin, how it would affect them and how to best protect their health.
Through reporting led by the Connect team, we provided specific answers to common question during this unusual and concerning time. Our stories included current air-quality maps and maps of where wildfires were burning.
Report for America adds fifth journalist to USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin team
Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms across the country to report on under-covered issues.
There are five journalists working in Wisconsin newsrooms who are RFA corps members, including Cleo Kreji, who joined the Journal Sentinel this summer to cover a new beat, workforce development, job training and career paths. Already, she’s written about apprenticeships, careers-focused education and technical colleges refocusing efforts post-pandemic.
Caitlin Looby and Madeline Heim, cover the environment, focusing on the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basin, respectively. They teamed up with Frank Vaisvilas on a series that explored how the wisdom and knowledge of Indigenous communities could be critical to combating climate change.
Madison Lammert is the only reporter in Wisconsin with a dedicated beat focusing on the state’s child-care industry and early childhood education. Working out of the Post-Crescent newsroom, she spent a big chunk of the year writing about the impact of the state’s Child Care Counts program and its connection to the fragile child care industry and what it meant for parents and families.
Finally, Danielle DuClos covers K-12 education for the Press-Gazette. She broke several major stories, including gaps in how predator teachers can be removed from their posts and changes in how reading is taught to students.
Your generous tax-deductible donations help make this reporting possible. You can donate at: jsonline.com/RFA.
Stock the Shelves campaign helps readers provide more than 500,000 meals
Each year, the USA TODAY NETWORKWisconsin spends October raising awareness of food insecurity through a partnership with Feeding America Eastern Wisconsin and Greater Fox Cities Chapter of Credit Unions. This year, the campaign collected just over $136,000 to fight hunger in Wisconsin.
Thanks to the purchasing power of Feeding America, where every $1 donated buys about $10 worth of food, this translates to more than 545,060 meals for friends and neighbors in need.
Reporters collaborated on weekly coverage during October, turning the spotlight on the volunteers, program organizers and helpers behind the scenes, working to keep Wisconsin’s network of food pantries stocked and ready for clients in need.
Digital Advisory Group gets out and about in the community
GREEN BAY — The Green Bay Press-Gazette’s Digital Advisory Group’s goal is to better connect with neighborhoods and communities that may otherwise go unnoticed or ignored.
To do that, the Press-Gazette has a private Facebook group where members from these underserved communities comment on our stories. We also ask questions and engage with them. For example, one member pointed out that in a story about several police officers facing reprimands, our promo photo was of the only officer who was a person of color. After the member pointed that out, editors changed the promo image.
This summer, newsroom staff set up a table at both the Juneteenth celebration and the Oneida Nation Pow-Wow to further engage with members of the community.