Parental concerns about school Covid policies in the spring and summer of 2020 created a groundswell of grassroots action in Waukesha County opposing policies like school closings, online learning, mask mandates and untested vaccines. These were the results of a pattern of runaway liberalism by local elected officials, educational bureaucrats and teachers.

One of the key drivers of the WISRED initiative occurred when a local school district decided to change its historic high school nickname from the “Indians” to the “Phoenix.” The proposal was pushed through by the liberal administration and school board despite significant and vocal community objections. Incidentally, the “Indians” nickname faced no opposition from the local Native-American community. There are other examples listed below.

- After a parent’s third grade daughter was seriously bullied by another girl, the teacher and administration made the girls try to “mediate” their differences rather than impose any accountability or discipline on the bully. As you might imagine, that didn’t work out very well.

While some dissatisfied families had the financial ability to move their children to local private religious schools, most were forced to confront the situation of their public schools forcing their children to accept the unacceptable.

- A public school classroom proudly displayed a picture of Communist guerilla leader Che Guevara on the wall. Guevara is known to have supervised the torture and execution of hundreds of Cuban citizens opposed to the Castro government which seized private land and property for government takeover. While he was a doctor, he used his medical skills to torture prisoners, expressed blatant racism toward African people and supported nuclear war against the United States. He is not exactly a good student role model.

Currently, municipal governments are often more focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), anti-law enforcement policies, fighting climate change, and wasteful spending rather than maintaining basic functions like public safety, sanitation, efficient transportation and sensible development. 

- A major intersection in the middle of a predominantly residential neighborhood that lacked sidewalks had vacant commercial land along a single busy street. The local Zoning Board proposed rezoning the area to high density multi-family with a percentage dedicated to low-income units. They developed this plan with little input from local residents. Residents objected and the plan was shelved.

WISRED started activities in the Northeast portion of our county where liberals were making political inroads and held majorities on some boards and councils. We selected key school districts where issues were hot to build our efforts. That gave volunteers incentive to join our efforts and candidates good reasons to run. 

- The spouse of a school board member is a local pharmacist who runs a chain of pharmacies in our community. During the height of the Covid outbreak, this same business provided mobile inoculation vans on public school grounds and the school board member attempted to make public school student vaccination mandatory via these vans. This was an obvious conflict of interest. 

- The County was traumatized by a vehicle-ramming attack killed six people and injured 62 others at the annual Christmas Parade in Waukesha on November 21, 2021. Milwaukee prosecutors had released the perpetrator, who had an extensive criminal record in multiple states, two days earlier on $1,000 bond after running over the mother of his children with a car. The crime received international coverage, and the defendant was eventually sentenced to life in prison, thanks in large part to the efforts of the presiding conservative judge.

Events like these call the local community to action, but after that initial effort, the result is often a return to complacency. We need to redirect that enthusiasm to action resulting in lasting change to solve problems caused by the extreme Left in our communities. This is the basic philosophy of the WISRED initiative.

The enthusiasm in the community boosted our motivation. It became fun! We held strategy meetings with candidates and some incumbents to discuss best practices, filing paperwork, and managing campaigns and volunteers.  

We created our logo and a common look and feel. The geographic boundaries of those school districts helped create our candidate teams and associated brochures like postcards to hand out or mail. Those teams defined our Get Out The Vote (GOTV) efforts and boundaries for going door to door.  We worked hard right up to the day before the election, and we won! Now we were hooked. We decided to take it county-wide. 

What began as a grassroots effort in a handful of school districts has evolved into a county-wide initiative boasting an 86% win rate, with 642 of 722 candidates elected over five consecutive cycles. See out Voter Guide page for links to more details on our local election success.