Scott Walker campaign ad upsets school district where it was filmed

Molly Beck | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

MADISON - A tiny Oneida County school district has banned political activity by officials during school hours after a board member, two teachers and a student appeared in a television ad paid for by Gov. Scott Walker's re-election campaign — surprising parents and school officials.

Walker is airing a campaign ad on television stations statewide featuring the Three Lakes School District and its work implementing the state's first school-based fabrication laboratory, known as Fab Labs, which teaches engineering and materials processing and allows students to apply textbook physics and math to real-world projects.

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But some residents of the 500-student school district community and the district's own school board president say they didn't know the district would be featured in a campaign ad for Walker — and some aren't happy about it.

"I was alarmed and just really concerned because it came out of the blue," said Three Lakes School Board president Tom Rulseh, who learned the district was featured in the ad on July 28 when a district resident called him. "I'm still not clear on exactly how this happened."

Rulseh said he and other board members were under the impression through a discussion with Superintendent George Karling that Walker would be visiting the district to tour the laboratory, and was unaware a campaign ad was being filmed.

Karling did not return a phone call seeking comment but said at a Thursday school board meeting that he "failed to vet the purpose of the Governor's visit as thoroughly as I should have even though the intent and purpose was expressed to me," according to WJFW-TV in Rhinelander.

But in an interview with the Vilas County News-Review weekly newspaper earlier this week, Karling said he received permission from the board to have a film crew on school grounds but never knew it would be to film an ad for Walker's campaign.

"I know for a fact they (the school board) weren’t thinking about an ad and I know I wasn’t thinking about an ad, a campaign ad,” Karling told the newspaper. “My idea was it was good for him (Walker) to see our Fab Lab because we were teaching other districts on that day. And that’s what it was.”



Karling, who has donated to Republicans in the past, told the News-Review the matter was a "lapse" on his part. He said the district got involved in the filming after Sen. Tom Tiffany (R-Hazelhurst) asked him if he could find some within the district who "might thank the governor for sparsity aid and direct per-pupil aid."

"It never dawned on me they were doing a political ad. I’m sorry about that,” he said.

A spokesman for Walker's campaign said Karling knew why Walker and a film crew were on school grounds, however, and provided the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with a permission form sent to Karling allowing the footage to be used for broadcast purposes.

The school board adopted a policy at a packed special meeting Thursday to prohibit school officials or school board members from engaging in any political activity during school hours.

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Lynn Zibell of Three Lakes, who attending the meeting, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel she was frustrated by the ad because schools are supposed to be politically neutral.

“That’s what our students need to see, that they don’t take sides in any way,” Zibell said Friday. “And to have a school board member in the ad, it was like, ‘Oh my goodness, do they realize what’s going on here?’ And perhaps — I don’t think they did.”

Zibell taught civics in Green Bay and retired to Three Lakes. She said she would have been just as disturbed by the ad if it were run by a Democrat.

“I knew in a classroom I could never give my political views to my students,” she said. “If I did, I’d be hung out to dry, so to speak. And so, to have our school district be used in an ad — I was mortified by it.”

Terry McCloskey, a school board member who is featured prominently in the ad, said he "wasn't really sure" if it was a campaign ad when he was being filmed.

"I made a bad error of judgment," McCloskey said. "I went over to thank the governor for the budget this year and for his help and assistance for education and they (the film crew) were doing something on the Fab Lab and I'm a big supporter of the Fab Lab and I got a little carried away and made a bad error."

Brian Reisinger, spokesman for Walker's campaign, supplied the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel with a July 15 email from the campaign to Karling with an attached form on campaign letterhead for film participants to allow the footage to be used for commercial broadcasting purposes, among other things.

The form features Walker's name on the letterhead and says the footage can be used for any broadcast purpose, but does not explicitly mention campaign ads.

Reisinger questioned the criticism of the ad, noting that the school board president who said he wasn't aware of the plans for the ad signed a petition in 2012 to hold a recall election for Walker.

"Scott Walker visited the Three Lakes school district and community to talk about our positive agenda and the good things happening there," Reisinger said in a statement. "Our campaign was up front with people we talked with that it was for an ad, and the governor will remain focused on that positive story no matter what the unions and our opponents throw at us."

Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contributed to this report.