Stories you might have missed from around Wisconsin.
Racine: Staff information potentially accessed during RUSD security breach.
Incidents of businesses having their networks hacked is becoming a common story. The potential damage can be catastrophic. That’s the worry in Racine where a recent security breach of the Racine Unified School District might have involved unauthorized access to staff members’ personal information. Student data was not impacted, according to a forensic investigation that was completed Jan. 20. The Journal Times quoted an email from Tim Peltz, RUSD chief information officer to district staff. It read in part, “The investigation showed that the security breach may have involved unauthorized access to a subset of data stored on our systems, and that this data contains certain staff personal information. We have not identified any impact to student data, which is hosted with an external vendor and not on Racine’s local systems. We are continuing to work to review all potentially affected employee information.” It mainly affected RUSD’s internal network and systems. External systems the district uses for areas such as human resources were not impacted. RUSD is now completely back online after dealing with technology issues for about two months. Full Story
Marinette: “This Girl Can” promotes women in welding.
Do you remember the film Flashdance? The main character was a young woman who supplemented her dancing aspirations by working as a welder. That career choice seemed highly unusual in 1983 when the film was released. Times have changed. As many schools and technical colleges focus on promoting skilled labor through the various trades, women are often left behind. The American Welding Society reports that only 5.8% of all welders are women, demonstrating a large group of untapped potential welders. In an effort to encourage more women and girls to explore welding careers, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College Marinette has partnered with Samuel Pressure Vessel Group to hold their yearly This Girl Can event on March 5 and 7. This Girl Can is a two-day, hands-on event that allows girls in grades seventh through ninth to explore the welding field. The Peshtigo Times quoted Marinette campus Dean Cindy Bailey, who explained the importance of events like this, “It really is to get young girls interested in a non-traditional occupation…it’s getting women into the trades, it’s getting men into healthcare.” Since this is the first time many of the attendees have ever tried welding, there are a variety of female mentors ready to help. Before starting, women from the math department explain how math is applied and how to read blueprints. Full Story
Chippewa Falls: Art teacher’s book makes statewide Battle of the Books competition.
Who knows more about what a child will like to read than a teacher? Lately we’ve heard of a number of teachers writing children’s books and having success with them. Now we can add an art teacher from Chippewa Falls to that list. Robin Kelley published “Ostriches Eat Sausages: An Alphabet Book” in 2021 in honor of her daughter Jayna, who was killed by an intoxicated driver while picking up trash along the road with her girl scout troop. By early 2024, Kelley had sold nearly 2,000 copies of the book and donated all profits, roughly $3,000, to The Jayna Kelley Memorial Foundation, which she co-founded with friends and family to carry on her daughter’s legacy. Sales of the book slowed after that but now, according to reporting in the Chippewa Herald, the Wisconsin Education Media & Technology Association selected “Ostriches Eat Sausages” for the 2025 statewide Battle of the Books. In Battle of the Books, students across the state read and study the 20 books selected for their age level. It culminates in an online statewide battle, where teams of two to four students work to answer questions about the books. “Ostriches Eat Sausages” was also nominated for the Golden Archer Award, a student-choice book award also facilitated by WEMTA. Of the five books nominated for the primary education category, Kelley’s is the only book written by a Wisconsin-based author and the only self-published book. Full Story
