School gardens and outdoor education have a long history in Wisconsin public schools. The first major school garden movement in the U.S. began in the late 1800s and culminated with a “U.S. Garden Army” of school children producing food for the World War I effort. Here a Madison public school student works in his school garden in 2005.
LEED School
In 2006, Northland Pines High School proudly opened the first LEED-certified school in the state and the first Gold Certified public high school in the county.
Oshkosh West High School students work on a Project Lead the Way project in 2009. In 2004, the Kern Family Foundation began providing financial support for Wisconsin Schools to implement the program, which had begun in 1997, to support engineering education.
The 2000s
No event shaped the decade as much as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Like Pearl Harbor 60 years earlier, the strike on U.S. soil galvanized the country and the war on terror began in earnest.
The new millennium began with the swearing in of George W. Bush as president after the U.S. Supreme Court settled a recount dispute in Florida in Bush v. Gore. Eight years later, a global economic plummet marked the end of Bush’s presidency. U.S. Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois promised hope and that November he handily defeated Arizona Sen. John McCain by more than nine million votes and 188 electoral college votes, becoming the nation’s first Black president.
The WASB
- 2000: Citing a need to consolidate services, the Board of Directors closes a satellite office in Wausau.
- 2002: A potential $1.1 billion state budget deficit prompts delegates to oppose further K-12 cuts with a La Crosse dele-gate maintaining, “We can’t educate children with more cuts.”
- 2004: The WASB leads opposition to a taxpayer bill of rights (TABOR) constitutional amendment that would have reduced local school board control.
- 2005: The Board of Directors hires John Ashley to be the association’s third executive director.
- 2007: Henry Winkler, aka “The Fonz,” keynotes at the State Education Convention.
- 2008: The WASB focuses on helping school districts imple-ment the state’s new PI 34 teacher licensure rules.
- 2009: The WASB unsuccessfully fights to keep the qualified economic offer provision of teacher contract law.
WASB Presidents
2000 – Patrick Sherman – Genoa City J2
2001 – Dorothy Tews – Neenah
2002 – Mary Ann Stewart – Baraboo
2003 – Neil Duresky – La Crosse
2004 – Joe Dannecker – Milwaukee
2005 – Melody Gehrt – Kaukauna
2006 – Sid Bjorkman – Amery
2007 – Gabe Kolesari – Hamilton
2008 – Tim Sivertson – Elk Mound
2009 – Victoria McCormick – Greendale
Our State
- 2000: UW-Madison wins its second straight Rose Bowl game.
- 2001: State Sen. Margaret Farrow becomes Wisconsin’s first female lieutenant governor after Lt. Gov. Scott McCallum takes over from Gov. Tommy Thompson, who left to become the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.
- 2001: Tests show that 3% of the 446,000 deer killed by Wisconsin hunters are infected with chronic wasting disease.
- 2002: Baseball’s All-Star game, played in Milwaukee, ends in an 11-inning tie when both teams run out of pitchers.
- 2003: The 2003-05 state budget eliminates the state’s obligation to pay two-thirds of school costs.
- 2004: Louis Butler, Jr. becomes the first Black justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
- 2006: Principal John Klang loses his life after heroically con-fronting an armed student at Weston High School in Cazenovia.
- 2007: A 20-year-old, off-duty county deputy murders six Crandon High School students and recent graduates and critically injures a seventh at a homecoming party.
- 2008: Wisconsin Dells’ Lake Delton completely drains after record rains cause its banks to burst; General Motors closes its Janesville plant, ending 100 years of auto manufacturing in the state; and Aaron Rodgers becomes the Packers’ starting quarterback.
- 2009: The first Little Free Library appears in Hudson.
Our Nation
- 2000: Dow Jones hits 11,722; US Census counts 281,421,906 residents — a 13% increase from 1990.
- 2001: Congress reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as the No Child Left Behind Act with demands for more accountability and testing; and “The Producers” wins the Tony award for best musical.
- 2003: Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s deposed leader, is captured by U.S. troops; space shuttle Columbia disintegrates as it re-enters the atmosphere, killing all onboard; and Beyoncé releases her first solo studio album.
- 2004: Mark Zuckerberg launches Facebook.
- 2005: Hurricane Katrina devastates New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, killing nearly 2,000 people and causing $81 billion in damage.
- 2006: Jack Dorsey and two colleagues pitch the idea for a new online platform called “twttr,” now known as Twitter.
- 2007: A Minnesota bridge on I-35 over the Mississippi River collapses, killing 13 and putting a focus on the nation’s aging infrastructure.
- 2009: Pilot Chesley Sullenberger and co-pilot Jeff Skiles (from Oregon, Wis.) successfully crash-land US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River.
