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Tonight in Wisconsin, spend the day with the Milwaukee County
Probeation and Parole agent.
A farm community tackles the high cost of health care
and students from Wisconsin's smallest high school celebrate
a big graduation day.
We're the 2003 graduate in class of Washington Island High.
Yeah! That's tonight in Wisconsin.
Good evening and welcome to In Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Lowe.
Our first story tonight takes place just off the tip of Door
County on Washington Island.
The island is home to Wisconsin's smallest high
school, where they don't have locks on the lockers.
They don't have a senior prom and they don't have enough
students for a football team.
They do, however, have a graduating senior class.
Producer Jerry Huffman introduces us to this class of
12 Washington Island seniors as they prepare to celebrate
a milestone in their lives.
One of the first things you notice about Washington
Island is that you have to take a boat to get there.
It is, after all, an island, one with a pace of life
that forces you, even helps you to slow down.
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We drove off the ferry on a recent Sunday
knowing little about the Washington Island school,
other than it is the state's smallest school district.
What we learned is that it's also one of the oldest
dating back to the 1840s and at its peak there were
four schools on the island.
Sports, both in the school and in the community,
have always overlapped.
Baseball for the men and basketball, albeit
in nearly floor length dresses for the women.
Dr. Susan Churchill Chaston has been the principal of Washington
Island school for four years.
My first year here, there were five kids who graduated.
How large is the average class graduating class?
110. 10 doesn't sound like many
until you realize there's only a little over 100 students
in the entire K-12 school.
Indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you and have a great week.
Discipline issues here are as unique as the school.
One of the five written rules, take your hat off inside.
Forget once and you lose your hat for the day.
Forget twice and your hat is gone for a week.
The Washington Island school rules are rules.
Thank you Mrs.
Farron. I couldn't hear you, I just...
Up here, discipline really isn't a big issue.
In fact, there's been only one student suspension
in the last four years.
Most of the problems in the classrooms are
handled by the teachers.
And the problems are not really severe.
There are students who might act out in a class or need
to have some time to consider the error of their ways.
But we don't have serious discipline problems here.
How many were killed just trying to get back
to the Russian lines?
Three. Three of them.
One wounded.
Lila Neelson teaches both English and
history at the school.
And she's a fourth-generation islander.
Personally, my class was the biggest ever to graduate in
the history of the island.
There were, I think, 18 of us who graduated.
This year, there is an even dozen, including her son Jack,
the fifth generation of Neelson's on Washington Island.
You develop strong friendships between your classmates,
because you're with them.
You're almost...
Almost like a brother and sister kind of thing, kind of when
you come out the other end, because you've been with
them for, you know, 18 years of your life almost.
Which is kind of cool, yeah.
Working in Sturgeon Bay, I'm going to...
The NWTC in Green Bay, I'm going to a college at a school.
The class of 2003 is in their final weeks of school.
Many started together as kindergarteners, two others
moved here from Madison, one from Vermont.
Jane Baker is one of the Madison transplants.
I've made relationships that are so much different than Madison.
I feel like people here are really developed
their own personalities a lot more than they
do in big cities.
12 young people linked by the bond of going to the
smallest school in the state.
Wisconsin, meet this year's senior class of
Washington Island School.
Hi, I'm Josh for Interim Shurist, and we're the
2003 graduating class of Washington Island.
Yeah! Their dreams are as diverse as
the young people themselves.
Gina Maneo will go to Cosmetology School.
Steve Ames, the newbie from Vermont, is going back east
to learn how to be a chef.
Josh Went is joining the Marines to see the world.
The first thing that came to mind is to travel, and
everybody kind of laughed because I live on Washington's
now, and probably I think I don't get out much or something.
But my dad was a Marine following his footsteps kind of.
And a big role model up here was police officer Tyler McGreen.
He was in the Marines.
It is refreshing to see kids so eager to take on the world,
a world with boundaries stretching beyond
Washington Island.
You're going to go to school, where?
Kona Hawaii.
In study, what?
It's a five-month program called DTS, Discipleship Train School.
And the three months that I'm there in Hawaii,
I go to different seminars and lectures.
And then the next two months you go on an outreach
to Asia or the Pacific.
This is a close group of young people.
Because there are no shopping malls or movie theaters
on Washington Island, they have become more like a
family than mere classmates.
A family with roots that will always let them come home again.
Josh Van Ramshhorst will study to be a firefighter.
They want to get off the island, but then the feeling is more,
you know, I missed the island, because you get so used
to it being up here.
I mean, it's like a little community, a little, like
everyone's your brother and sister up here.
As you can imagine, graduation day on Washington
Island is a big deal.
It is a passing of the torch that is arguably
felt more deeply than at a big city school.
These seniors are part of a line stretching back
to before the Civil War, students who are stepping
both from the isolation and insulation of life
on Washington Island.
All the island turns out that we feed them all.
We, the senior parents, we cater a meal or, you
know, food, finger food, and we have a DJ, and the mom
stands with their sons, the dads, with their daughters.
Little kids, the DJ plays a mixture.
I mean, it isn't just the kids.
It's every grandma, grandpa, they're in
their eating, dancing.
We've got some excellent leaders in this group.
Great athletes, scholars, and just all around nice kids.
You do get sort of attached to them, don't you?
Oh, yes.
I'm always worried that I'm going to cry at graduation.
Some of you with an eye for detail may have noticed there
were only 11 students in that story, instead of 12.
Kenan Kruger missed school that day, but he'll be
there for graduation.
Kenan congrats to you and your classmates, as well as
all of this year's graduating seniors in Wisconsin.
Still to come tonight.
The farm community of Cashden looks for a solution to the
high cost of health care.
It's actually better than $20,000.
That's coming up later tonight.
A few months back, we spent the day in Milwaukee
County with Beverly Dillon.
She's a probation and parole agent who works very long days.
You might assume this job would make her think
the worst of people.
Instead, we found a woman who chooses to focus on
a positive future for the people in her charge.
You know, I tend to have a little foot, so if I'm
driving too fast, let's go.
Beverly Dillon begins her 10-hour work day at
about 8 in the morning.
Today is her once-a-week round of home visits
to those she supervises on probation or parole.
But the home visit is the verified residence.
You want to make sure they live where they say they're living.
I mean, because someone can give you an address, address,
and it's not really a house.
It's not really a residence.
You go looking and it's not there.
So you want to make sure they have a stable place to live.
When you go inside the house, you want to make sure
they're belongings are there.
Maybe they have some mail that's there.
You know, you look for pictures.
You know, just pictures on a wall family.
You just make sure when you go there, you want to
make sure they live there.
First stop is with Haiti, a woman who has been on
probation for 18 months for disorderly conduct.
If I like Haiti, she's one of, you know, I
like all of my things.
I'm a client, so I don't like to say offenders.
We like, we think of positive.
We live in touristy futures.
You know, that's old.
Haiti has been depressed and suicidal in the past.
Her probation ends tomorrow.
But I'm going to miss her.
But I do want her to call me because I want to make
sure she's doing okay.
You know, there's one thing about this job.
I mean, it goes beyond the job.
You know, if you really care for people, because these
people have real problems.
You know, we don't have real problems.
They have real problems.
Haiti lives on supplemental security income and is
going to school for her GED and to get a driver's license.
I live on a budget.
You know what I'm saying?
If I buy food, I can't pay electric.
Okay. So I'm getting this connection, but I got to live.
Yeah, I complain because it's hard.
It's hard and I cry.
But it's like, okay.
Another day.
God gave me another day.
Thank you.
I got to do something with this day.
Beverly's, I look at her as not only the probation officer,
but my counselor.
It's that counseling relationship.
Haiti says she will miss now that her
probation period is ending.
But call me.
I'm serious.
Okay. Call me if you need
to talk.
I will.
I don't care what time.
Call me.
I always check my voice mail.
Saturday Sunday, whatever.
I'll call you back.
Okay. Call me whatever.
Okay. I'm serious.
I will call.
Okay. See the good thing is you can call me
and I can tell you what to do.
Despite the apparent closeness between agent and client,
Dylan says there could be no hugs as they part.
I'm not hating.
I hate you.
Sometimes you got to cut it off for her.
We can't hug.
We're not supposed to hug.
That's against the friendization policy.
Let's say if she wasn't an honest person.
She said, well, I hugged during an idea this or that.
And then when you get into hugging, you're getting
emotionally involved.
You want to draw the line.
You want to maintain.
You want to keep it professional.
Dylan immediately moves on to her next client,
Melissa, who's on probation for writing bad checks.
I found that once she got pregnant and she got put in
custody for upscoundering, she did a complete turnaround,
a complete turnaround.
And that has been, it has to be going on a year that
she's been 100% compliant.
And with everything, I mean, she's paid all her restitution.
She reports that she's opposed to.
I just have to praise.
I can't do anything for praise.
Dylan actively supervises more than 50 clients.
In the number of times of months she sees each
person varies case by case.
Today, she's making eight home visits.
Her ex-boyfriend is threatening to shoot the house up.
Yeah, and I told him, well, I suggested that
she tell him to leave.
But you know, and it just started just because
of a child, the baby.
And so now he's threatening to shoot the house up.
So I told him you need to call the police, but
she's going to get a restraining order against him.
I'm walking.
Second district, please.
I have somebody who's gone to my house to play throwing a
shoot at my house and being out with an ex-boyfriend.
And I can't get down to the courthouse to tomorrow to
get a restraining order.
So what can I do in the meantime?
What can I file a report against him?
Okay. Thank you, bye.
There's something to ask.
Good. All right.
Well, you call me and let me know what they say.
Because, I mean, you just can't take these kind of risks.
So keep your door locked.
Don't answer the door.
And why risk it when you can do something about it?
Because then what happened?
She came, she get killed, then all of a sudden what?
Well, she told her PL, you know, and no one
did anything about it.
The warning signs were this, people are going to be
searching for someone to blame.
That's what's going to happen.
So we know the threat is there.
Let's follow through.
The police and the police are going to be searching
for someone to blame.
And they're going to be searching for someone to blame.
And we revoke based on behavior.
Okay, so if you're not acting appropriately in the community,
then the sentence, the original sentence, needs to be enforced.
Andrew, how are you doing?
Is everybody doing?
Well, why don't you meet me over at your house?
Take about five minutes.
Okay. Bye-bye.
Andrew, now this is the person who came out of the
institution doing well.
And when he got out, well, he didn't have a place to go,
so I set him up with emergency housing until
he got on his feet.
And now he's in a one-room.
Dylan says she sometimes doesn't remember what her clients
were originally charged with.
And unless they continue with criminal behavior,
she prefers to think about the future instead of the past.
So what's up?
When you look at Mighty Dapper today?
Edrick is on parole until March 2004.
He served three years in prison for armed robbery
and being party to a crime.
My first came out.
I went through a program there.
And they used to have like more than meditations
and little stains and everything that they
would have every day.
And I remember one that stuck with me.
It said, "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."
And my plan was to gain employment immediately.
And a lot of people, you know, threw yourself
in some other people, helped me with that.
He's doing really good.
Just keep it up.
Yeah, hopefully after I'm off, then I can
give my silver rights, restore it.
And I can just, you know, put this behind me and go forward.
I can just link the each visit varies from a few
minutes up to an hour, depending on what
needs to be discussed.
Fred is next on today's list.
He's on probation for disorderly conduct and bail jumping.
He says he found his wife with another man.
Fred got a knife and threatened to kill him.
When I first met Fred, boy, he would cry.
And he would cry.
And I mean, he would cry.
I mean, I was like, "Well, I know I ain't
never seen me in bed."
And he was just so hurt that this woman, his
wife, would do this to him because he loved this woman.
And I mean, he loved this woman.
He loved her.
Fred spent three and a half months in jail.
Agent Dylan has helped him deal with divorce, child
custody issues, bad health.
Now Fred says his ex-wife wants to come back home.
I love it.
I miss a quick deal.
Sometimes I think I should just call up and say,
"Come on home."
I can't find it in my heart to ask that.
I want to, but I can't find the
words to say, you know.
It's hard.
As an agent, you have to do family intervention.
Most of the time, that's the first thing you
have to do before...
I have to deal with his issues before I can even address
anything I want to deal with or ask about probation.
The day contains visits with Randall on probation
for disorderly conduct.
Sammy, on probation for first degree reckless endangerment,
he was with a group that tried to kill another man,
Eddie, on probation for domestic violence, and a new client
for Agent Dylan, Timothy, on probation for auto theft.
I need a full tour of the house.
This is my first time here, you know, since
it's my first time here.
We're here with you.
I'm following you.
Here's my kitchen, everybody.
But just a little bit of change.
I'm just kind of mad at Cease.
And this room, we don't really need to do that.
Okay, Timothy.
At about six o'clock, Agent Dylan's nearly 10-hour day
of home visits is finished.
Yeah, but I had a good day today, huh?
But, you know, I always have good days, no home.
Tomorrow, Agent Dylan will be back in her Department
of Corrections office where she will meet with
another round of clients.
She will do whatever needs to be done to keep them
out of trouble, and on the road back into society.
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Our next story takes us to the West Central Wisconsin
Farm Community of Cachedon.
For these farmers, the high cost of health insurance has
hit home as it hasn't many rural areas of the state.
The difference in Cachedon is that the community decided
to do something about it.
Our report is narrated by Wisconsin Public
Radio's Mel Boulara.
Farming in a wet spring is a dirty business.
But Larry and Sue Hackinson take it all in stride.
The Hackinson's milk about 60 cows on their
Monroe County farm.
They also raise calves to try to make ends meet.
Making ends meet on the farm has always been hard.
This year has been harder than most.
Milk prices are down again, and the higher cost of
fuel rippled through the entire farm industry,
raising the cost of everything from fertilizer to the
fees charged by suppliers.
Larry Hackinson says the bills add up at the end of the month.
"I've got to be able to make meatier all the stuff
at the end of the month.
If you can, some months you don't."
"This is going to try to make up for it somewhere online."
But Hackinson adds that making up for it is almost impossible,
especially if a family member gets sick or has an accident.
The Hackinson say they can't afford health insurance.
It's estimated that for a farming family of five, like the
Hackinson's, health insurance costs five to $600 a month.
"The first buying insurance is no way.
I don't have enough money to pay my farm payments and deed bills
and still cover the insurance."
"Cost" isn't the only obstacle farmers like the
Hackinson's must overcome when looking for health care.
Access is another obstacle.
Many rural towns in Wisconsin don't have a
nearby health care clinic.
One exception is "Caston."
In 1993, "Caston Business Owners"
teamed up with the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association.
Their goal is to create a clinic that offered low-cost
health care.
They wrote a grant and won federal start-up
funds for a non-profit community health center.
Scott Wall is one of the business leaders.
"The village was lucky.
We were lucky to get funded.
We were in a group of 500 applicants
and we were one of less than 30, I believe, in the
country that got funded in the particular cycle that we did."
The grant helped create CINIC Bluffs Community Health Center.
CINIC Bluffs has a variety of services under one roof.
It started out with basic medical services, optometry
and chiropractic care.
Over time, it added a 10-chair
dental clinic and a pharmacy.
Sue Hackinson heard about the clinic from a friend.
"She says some just have to pay the nominal fee and others, you
know, they go according to your income and I thought, 'Oh, that
sounded real good deal to me.'"
The clinic serves a range of patients.
"Well, I think they're guilty.
So how are you today?"
From those who pay the full cost of care to those like
the Hackinson's, who pay fees adjusted for their income.
"I think the front part of the eye makes sure it's healthy."
About 16% of the clinic's budget is supplied by federal funds,
in part because it serves a large low income population.
Without those patients, the clinic wouldn't have
a large enough patient population to stay solvent
in this small community.
Robert Jeklin is the clinic's executive director.
Without the alternative funding for segments of the population
that may not be able to afford it, we wouldn't have a large
enough market to exist in.
So people are connected, even though some may have
more wealth than others.
They're connected in that if they don't all have
access, you probably couldn't do it in a small town.
This small town connection continues in the way the
health center is governed.
A 12-member community board makes the decisions.
It's made up of members like a male carrier, a nurse,
a retired high school principal, and a local farmer.
"I think the advantage to having the citizen board is
their focus is not only on the bottom line, but the bottom
line for the community."
The bottom line is a constant concern.
With almost 75% of the budget coming from
patient fees, including the reduced fees offered on the
sliding scale, the clinic must attract a large number of
patients to stay in business.
In this regard, the community-centered approach
seems to have paid off.
In 2002, the Scenic Bluffs Health Center had
more than 15 and a half thousand patient visits.
It isn't always easy, but the Scenic Bluffs model
offers promise for other rural towns around the state.
"There isn't anything that we've done here that couldn't be
repeated in probably hundreds of communities around Wisconsin."
And for the Hackensons, the clinic has helped make
health care more accessible and more affordable.
If you'd like to comment on anything you've seen on
in Wisconsin or you have a suggestion for a story you'd
like to see on the program, please send us a note.
You can email your comments to inwisconsin@wpt.org or
you can write us a letter, send it to inwisconsin,
Wisconsin Public Television, 8-21 University Avenue,
Madison, Wisconsin, 5-3-706.
We'd love to hear from you.
Before we leave you tonight, a note about the virtual
school story we brought you a few weeks ago.
There's been a decision in the case of a lawsuit brought
by the State Teachers Union against the virtual school
Appleton Connections Academy.
Dane County Circuit Judge Stuart Schwartz ruled that as long as
some students from within the Appleton Area School District
show up at a building within the district at some time, it
is legal for a charter school like the Connections Academy
to educate most of its students in kitchens and living rooms
elsewhere across the state.
An attorney for the Teachers Union says it will file
an appeal within the month.
We began tonight show with an island visit and now we sign
off with a tour through another of our state's popular water
destinations, the Wisconsin Dell State Natural Area.
We hope you join us again for in Wisconsin.
I'm Patty Low.
Good night.
[birds chirping]
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